All allergies are reactions to a threat or what the body takes as a threat. So it’s no surprise that the skin has it’s fair share of allergic reactions.

Skin allergies or allergic eczema also called allergic dermatitis, is a very common allergic disease. Between 10% to 20% of children in the industrialised world get these skin allergies.

I was one of these allergic children. I had asthma and food allergies too. It just seemed to be part of life and not my fault. My skin allergies did clear up as I grew up and the asthma stayed around until I made the right lifestyle changes.

Skin Allergy Symptoms

Folks with skin allergies typically have dry, itchy, inflamed skin. Of course scratching it makes it worse and you may get blisters and weeping from the wounds. The skin may thicken too.

The symptoms are variable. Whether the flare ups are due to stress or changes in the environment or even a change in your diet will vary from person to person making it quite a puzzle to track down what your personal issue is.

One way to help yourself is to start an Allergy journal.

You can either just jot down all the important factors of the day, what you eat and drank, what you felt like and how your symptoms are or write a fuller account in diary format. Reviewing it after a few weeks may make it possible to track down what makes your symptoms worse and what does not.

Careful use of an allergy journal can help you make better decisions on medication – whether you like to use nutritional medicine like vitamin C and Quercetin or Pharmacy medicines.

Action Steps for Skin Allergies

1. Your body, including your skin is made from the food we eat. Cleaning up your diet is obvious. Less sugar, soft drinks with chemicals in them (sodas) and other junk food can be replaced with more fruits – especially grapes and apples.

2. Carefully review anything that goes on your skin. Yes you could have an allergy to make up, soap or even to topical medicine or ointments. Check the ingredients list and if you see an obvious irritant then avoid it for a while and see if it helps.

3. Reducing stress factors in your life helps and increasing your ability to cope is just as important, Learning to roll with the punches and maybe even avoid them with some nifty footwork is even better. All this stuff is learnable and you can learn it.

4. Make the decision to build health into you life and gradually explore ways to improve.

“Diamonds are forever” but skin allergies will only be around until you and your health professional have figured out the best ways to banish your allergic skin symptoms.

And if you do this a healthy way it will help other aspects of your life too.

Want to add to the Action Steps list above? Make a comment below and share your experience.

Alex