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Thursday, January 5, 2012

Our Eczema Hypothesis (mini-series 1 1/2)

In my CURRENT opinion, eczema is not caused by only one thing, it is a combination of things and is not the same cause for everyone. In our daughters' case I feel we have pinpointed a couple of things that could be the issue and cause.

First and foremost....our eldest daughter started showing signs of food allergies early, we didn't even notice that they were signs! This will be a whole different post (signs of food allergies). I believe based on turn of events, observation and research that her last straw was her 2 year check up. We got her MMR and two flu shots. She never got more than one at a time before then and we were pressured into all three. People get very touchy about vaccines. Comments arise, such as why don't we all have autism, eczema, fill in the blank if it is the vaccine? How come we all are fine and we got them? The answers are...my generation got 10 shots this generation gets upwards of 30 (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/child-schedule.htm) and we all have different DNA and metabolic systems!! Anyway, a vaccine is designed to force the body to, through artificial means, create antigens to certain viruses. For this reason vaccines have aluminum as an adjuvant to increase B cell production and increase activity of T2 cells. These are the inflammatory cells that are the attack dogs. Eczema is directly related to over active T2 cells in EVERY case. On this note, those T2 cells are activated to create antibodies to fight off that one antigen, but how does the body know what to fight and what not to fight? How long are those T2 cells activated? It is my theory that at that junction our bodies don't know how and people with predispositions to certain thing over react and make antibodies to fight off everything in the vaccine as well as what the body encounters as long as those T2 cells are activated. (Who knows how long this lasts since we are administering this ingredient during the most important time for maturing immune systems). Shortly after this visit she developed pneumonia and was knocked on her rear for almost 3 weeks. During this time she was on three different rounds of antibiotics and 2 weeks of NSAIDs that further tore up her gut. It was awful. So this is the first part of my hypothesis and why J's so reactive to her environment. Now on to what I think may be her predispositions...

I am under the impression that my family has a metabolic malfunction for lack of a better word. I think we have issues with insulin resistance, IBS as well as predisposition for atopic disease and many other things that I believe are tied to the fact that we have a malformation on our MTHFR gene. This is a common malformation and can affect up to 40% of the population. It can affect many metabolic processes. I have posted a couple of articles about this gene malformation in another post. I am still learning a lot about this and hope to figure more out as I go. With this can come low levels of Glutathione, it is the body's natural ability to detox. If my girls inherited this from me or if Tom has it as well and they inherited the more complex malformation this could be a huge factor. Not only does folate deficiency cause increased IgE levels, but if she were low on glutathione it could explain why we started to see such severe symptoms after her multiple vaccines. The aluminum had a more lasting and profound impact on her body because she wasn't able to metabolize it at the same rate as other people.
Glutathione has multiple functions:
  • It is the major endogenous antioxidant produced by the cells, participating directly in the neutralization of free radicals and reactive oxygen compounds, as well as maintaining exogenous antioxidants such as vitamins C and E in their reduced (active) forms.[17]
  • Regulation of the nitric oxide cycle, which is critical for life but can be problematic if unregulated[18]
  • It is used in metabolic and biochemical reactions such as DNA synthesis and repair, protein synthesis, prostaglandin synthesis, amino acid transport, and enzyme activation. Thus, every system in the body can be affected by the state of the glutathione system, especially the immune system, the nervous system, the gastrointestinal system and the lungs.[4]
  • It has a vital function in iron metabolism. Yeast cells depleted of or containing toxic levels of GSH show an intense iron starvation-like response and impairment of the activity of extra-mitochondrial ISC enzymes, followed by death.[19 
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutathione
My hypothesis: Eczema is an atopic condition that is a result of an overactive T2 cell production as well as a disruption in the metabolic system that is caused by both environmental factors as well as genetic make up. 

The next few posts will include further experiences regarding these topics as well as supplements, products and strategies that we have tried to alleviate these issues. Some of these things have worked and some have not. 

1 comment:

  1. I saw you post from baby center about baby eczema. I would like to know how long last your baby's eczema flare after vaccine. My LO get her vaccine 2 weeks ago and she still has some flare up. And how di you deal with it. She started get better before vaccine.
    Thank you

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