The excitement of having a new little person in your life does not wear off soon. A few sleepless nights. New patterns to adhere to. The baby has constant demands. If QK were older, we would certainly label her a tyrant. We were slaves to her, and forced to submit to her wants and needs. But of course, that was ok with us, she was ours. Every time we looked at her, our hearts would melt. We knew there would be great struggles that would require all our efforts, but we also knew that in the future, our current struggles would be worth all the trouble. Life is precious. And raising a child is one of the greatest things a person can experience in their life. Not only is it fun, but it is also rewarding, as you get to relive your own childhood with your children as they grow up.
After the birth of our child and our brief hospital stay, we soon had the child home and attempted to get situated to the new reality. Then the pediatrician visits started. The measuring of the child’s height and weight. Are things going ok? Is the child eating and pooping well? All the usual things. And do not forget, the standard vaccinations that are recommended, even while the child is in their first year on the planet.
These immunization shots seemed a little overdone. At two months, QK received 4 shots for 8 diseases. After this first series of shots at 2 months, QK was in pain for the rest of the day. She cried and was uncomfortable. This made me worried. As I considered QK’s suffering, I noted at the time, “We learned one important thing. Doctors do not put their patients first, they put themselves first. It is easier for them to give our child four shots at the same time, rather than one at a time. It is more convenient for them to administer shots in this way, but it is not right for QK.” As I ruminated over this, I concluded that multiple shots at one time caused QK a little too much trauma. I concluded that next time she receives a vaccine, that we will do no more than one shot at a time.
I looked over the immunization record card, and I looked at the recommended shot schedule of the CDC to see what shots would be next, and how many there would be. At four months, more shots. At six months, even more shots. At one year, we were expected to give QK even more shots. In total, based on the books aforementioned, the child should, by her 18th month, have been administered a total of 20+ shots for 7+ different diseases. During this time, the common refrain we heard over and over again, like a broken record, from various places… “You should always listen to your doctor. They know what is best. These vaccines are for your child’s protection, and they have been proven safe and effective.”
Yes, these are the health industry standards. And yes, we went along with this vaccine regimen at first, until the problems came. In our case, young QK developed eczema after the first series of shots at two months of age. At first, we did not correlate the eczema to the shots. The eczema came little by little. It started on her face, then her chest and shoulders, and then all over, until she had a pretty severe condition of eczema. We wondered, what is this? How did this happen? What can we do to cure this?
My first thought was that it may be caused by too many baths, the water being too hot and drying out her skin. Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps it was the chlorinated water. We measured the temperature of every bath to whatever the prescribed temperature was. We bought chlorine filters for the bath water. Then we didn’t do baths every day. We did them less often. None of these changes seemed to help. We spoke to a friend who was a doctor, and she said it may be due to my wife’s diet, since we were breastfeeding, and could be caused by an allergic condition. She recommended avoiding seafood, spicy food, beef, and lamb. She said after we get the eczema under control, then perhaps we could reintroduce these foods one by one, to determine which ones cause the problems. This also did not seem to help. Someone else said it could be dust mites, causing her sensitive skin reactions. We cleaned the air ducts in our house. We washed and changed the bed sheets often. We cleaned everything and everywhere. We got an air purifier. None of these things seemed to help. Of course, all these things took time, and we thought they were all worth a try. Of course, our first call before doing any of these things was to our pediatrician.
Our doctor told us that eczema is normal, and many children have it. We can try creams. And if the itching and eczema do not go away, we can try topical steroids. And if the itching and eczema still doesn’t go away, we can try stronger steroids, and if it still persists, we can go to a skin specialist, because as anyone in the medical field today will tell you, it was certainly not caused by the vaccines, because they are proven to be safe and effective. All we can do really, he said, is to let him manage the child’s disease the best he can. If all else fails, we can try the nuclear approach, which is guaranteed to work, oral steroids. These drugs would blot out and conquer the evil eczema once and for all. And if it comes back, we can do the treatment again. Of course, he said, there are risks with this. Oral steroids use lowers immunity and can cause additional problems in the future for the child, like stunted growth and other health issues. We drew the line in the sand there and said no to oral steroids.
The topical steroids worked for a day or so, but then the eczema came back with a vengeance. As I read more about steroids, I concluded they were nothing more than a temporary solution which would not last, and if used too often could cause permanent damage to our child. Therefore, we used them as rarely and sparingly as we could.
We visited an allergist, and he was happy to do the tests. After the tests were anything but conclusive, he told us allergy tests were not very reliable when a child is less than one year old. Then he added that we could stop back when the child is older, and these future tests may have more value for us. Then we went to a skin specialist, and it was more of the same, with instructions to bathe, then immediately use topical steroids, and then cover with creams or lotions. Nothing worked which gave us lasting results.
Now place yourselves in our shoes. The itching and scratching did not stop. This did not seem “normal” in any sense of the word. We had QK wearing gloves to bed to prevent her from scratching herself. She was not sleeping well, so therefore we were not sleeping well. Her skin was blotched red all over from the eczema, and we hoped that in time this would go away. We hoped this condition would resolve itself, and in a hurry. This was our baby, our pride and joy, our treasure. This should not have happened. We talked to everyone we knew. We asked lots of questions. We went on an extensive fact-finding mission.
As I said, we went to all the specialists, skin doctors, and allergy specialists. All these doctors and specialists were happy to provide advice and/or treatment and to help “manage” the child’s disease, but there were no cures, and the eczema remained. The itching and scratching did not stop. We did what the specialists recommended. At the time, we were using skin creams and lotions, steroid cream to stop the itching, and antibiotics to combat infections.
It was a little over one month since the first round of shots, and I had some questions for our pediatrician. 1> If she still has this rash, should we wait until this condition clears before we give her more vaccinations? No, he said, we should not wait, she should get her vaccinations on time. 2> Can antibiotics cause any harm to our child? Are there any known problems with giving them to children? No, he said, there are no problems. 3> Could my wife’s diet be a factor in causing my daughter’s allergies and eczema? No, he said. He stated that breastfeeding is not a problem, and my wife can eat anything she wants.
That was the advice from our doctor, whose name was at the top of other doctors in this practice, due to his seniority and experience. By the end of my research, it became clear that this doctor, with all of his years and experience, was not correct about one single thing he told me during this conversation. But I did not know this at the time. We went in and my daughter QK received her shots again at 4 months, and then again at 6 months of age.
Around the sixth month, we began using Benadryl, which is an antihistamine. We had avoided it until this time because it is an internal medicine, and our child was still young. But it was certainly better and safer than oral steroids. Finally, after a week of basically no sleeping for any of us, and lots of itching and scratching, we relented and gave QK some Benadryl. It proved to be helpful for her to stop her scratching, and to get some sleep. With this antihistamine, and the topical steroids and skin creams, we were able to manage her eczema somewhat better, but it was still pretty bad. The eczema returned again and again and proved to be a perpetual problem. In addition to eczema, she also had rhinitis, constipation, and cradle cap. These conditions became constant and ever-present conditions.
It took some time, but eventually, we lost trust in most doctors, and the medical profession as a whole. Not that all doctors are bad, but we were certainly at our wit’s end as to what we should do. We had exhausted all the potential causes of our child’s eczema that we could think of and consider, and we were left with only one last reason for the root cause of the problems, which was the vaccines. In the seventh month after birth, we stopped the vaccinations completely, even though the doctor repeatedly told us that this skin condition is “normal, happens all the time, and in no way is caused by the vaccines, which are safe and effective.” According to our doctor, the only thing we could do is to let him manage our child’s disease.
We then went to a naturopath doctor, who actually did provide some useful information besides using steroids and creams. We heard about fish oil, probiotics, bad chemicals in the shampoos and other products that we were using, foods to be avoided that would cause allergic reactions, foods that would be beneficial, and other vitamins and minerals that would be essential for our child’s recovery. This was good information, and totally different from the advice we received from our pediatrician and his referrals. This naturopath was expensive, and was not covered by our insurance, so we had to pay for this out of pocket. But it was worth it. It set us on the right path, but there was much information to digest in little time. The information she provided to us was not a quick fix and would not give QK relief in the here and now. We adopted what we could from this naturopath and tried to do our best to improve QK’s condition, along with the recommendations for my wife’s diet. The naturopath’s philosophy was to heal the body from within, so that the body could heal from the disease condition.
This information and advice from the naturopath were in stark contrast to the accepted western medical doctor’s practice of attacking the condition location where it is with more drugs and chemicals. It seemed like a conspiracy that the best information we received was not covered by insurance, and that the accepted doctors under the insurance plan did not want to heal our child and improve her health, but only to manage her disease and skin condition forever and ever with temporary palliatives, thereby ensuring repeated visits and recurring cash flows to their businesses. We put the naturopath’s information to work and began attempting to heal our child in this naturopathic way.
Around the ninth month, QK had a very bad outbreak of eczema, and Benadryl was no longer effective. We had an appointment for our nine-month pediatrician visit at this time. We had exhausted almost all of the advice he could give us on what to do for our daughter’s eczema. At this time, he said, “This looks pretty bad. Oral steroids are the only thing left that I can think of to help her.” We declined this advice, as it could cause permanent damage to QK that could not be undone.
We moved on again, to yet another doctor in the long line of doctors we had seen in hopes of finding a plan, a methodology, and the tools whereby we could get the eczema under control a little bit, so our lives could improve. God knows that QK, my wife, and I could use the help and advice, and especially the sleep and rest we all very badly needed. We visited a dermatologist, and she gave us some new advice, and a new antihistamine, Hydroxyzine, which proved to be most helpful. She stated that Hydroxyzine is less hyper reactive (less allergenic) than Benadryl. And she gave us anti-yeast shampoo for the cradle cap, along with some other creams/ointments. With her help, we were able to at least manage this eczema and cradle cap so that our daughter’s condition improved, and she could get some sleep and a little relief from the itching.
In our dermatologist’s (skin specialist) office, I could not help but notice, that on the office sheet in which “Dermatitis, Eczema, and Xerosis (dry skin)” were described, it stated: “Usually there is an underlying family history or genetic component” which is the causative factor. Whenever doctors and researchers do not know the cause, or want to hide the truth about a cause, the word “genetic” always seems to pop up. That word lets you know it is not your fault, it is no one’s fault, because you were born that way. You are overweight, is there anyone in your family that is overweight? Oh, then it is genetic. If you are an alcoholic or a drug abuser, and you have a relative that is also like that? Oh, it is not your fault. It is genetic. It seemed a little bit like nonsense to me. However, it does make sense that if you are born in a family, and they engage in certain behaviors or focus on certain food types, these habits may be passed on to the next generation, thereby causing similar problems. But that is not genetic. That is a learned behavior that can be changed.
While it is true that some conditions are of genetic origin, most of these are not. It is usually the way you live, the types of foods you eat or drink, and the habits you acquire which determine your health and health problems. The conclusion that some health issues are genetic in nature has become more of an excuse for Big Pharma to keep providing drugs to improve the condition, rather than encourage people to live better and healthier lives. Medical doctors are given no nutritional education, and no education in vitamins, minerals, or supplements of any kind. They are like carpenters with only a hammer as their tool. When you only have a hammer to work with, everything looks like a nail. Doctors only have drugs as their primary tool. And so, doctors tend to prescribe drugs for just about every condition.
At our daughter’s 1 year visit to our pediatrician, he took one look at our daughter QK, and he noticed the considerable improvement in her skin. He said, “Keep on doing whatever you are doing. It appears to be working.” I asked if he wanted to know what we did to help her improve her skin. He stated that he did not really want to know how she had improved, he was just glad she was looking better. Amazing, isn’t it? He did not want to know how we had found a way to manage this serious condition, so that he may be able to use the information to help others. Was this arrogance or laziness? Or was it sheer jealousy that another doctor was able to better help us with our problems and he was not? I do not know. But it was disappointing that he did not care enough to want to know how or why our daughter’s condition was improving.
It was nice that we had found a naturopath who had given us good advice, and a specialist doctor who found an effective antihistamine for us. We were now able to manage our daughter’s eczema better. And we were able to get some badly needed sleep. The improvement in our lives was significant. It was not a cure, and the eczema made regular comebacks due to allergic reactions, but at least we had some breaks from it.
Next week: An analysis of our pediatrician’s answers to my questions.