Skin is so revealing!
Our skin is the largest organ of the body, performing multiple tasks. Skin:
- Protects us from our environment
- Regulates our body temperature
- Warns of danger
- Prevents infection
- Senses the world around us
- Reveals what is going on inside our bodies
When I was in medical school we had a dermatology class by a professor in his 80s, Dr. Newcomer. He was hilarious. He would never touch the skin of the patients. Instead, he would have them show him what their rash or skin lesion looked like. He would often say, “Yuck-a-roo! You’ve got a rash there!” He would then turn to us and give us the diagnosis of what kind of rash. Whether it was eczema, seborrhea, psoriasis, or urticaria, he told us the symptoms of each skin condition.
But these skin rash names and symptoms did not denote the cause. Thus, we were only taught how to treat the symptoms of skin problems. Over the years, I have found that the skin reveals what is going on inside the body. Using the old system of diagnosing symptoms wasn’t helpful to find the cause, nor to relieve the condition.
One man, John Kortum, who is not a doctor or practitioner, has written a book in which he describes how he can diagnose internal illness simply by looking at the face. He can tell by the texture of the skin in certain locations on the face if a person has thyroid, adrenal, cancer, or other problems.
There may be no end to using the skin for diagnosis, but it’s not easy. The specific skin lesions may reveal that something is wrong, but do not tell us what specifically. We still need to dig to find the underlying cause of the illness.
The skin tells us there is a problem, but doesn’t say what is causing it because it is only one symptom. All symptoms do is tell us that there is a problem. If you have pain, then something is wrong. The pain may tell you where, but not what the problem is. Likewise a rash, or other skin lesion, may indicate that there is a problem, but not what or where the problem is.
Flush Food Sensitivities and Relieve Rosacea
I find food sensitivities to be a common cause of skin problems. One skin ailment I frequently see is rosacea, an inflammation in the skin of the face that causes:
- Enlargement of blood vessels
- And sometimes a bulbous tip of the nose
Dermatologists recommend antibiotics or anti-inflammatories in pills, creams, or gels to try to relieve the symptoms. However, I find that going to the source is much more helpful to prevent permanent skin damage.
The cause may be a lack of