Psoriasis Elimination Diet works!!

A psoriasis elimination diet, or you can say a restricted psoriasis diet is undoubtedly the most important aspect of holistic healing of psoriasis. Body detox measures (fasting, enema), Dietary supplements, herbal teas, positive lifestyle (regular exercise, no smoking and very less alcohol), stress management- all these things help. But, without positive changes in diet, there would be no long term relief. Diet protocol is definitely the leader here.

Jeffrey Watters, a business consultant from USA, has similar views. According to Jeffrey- psoriasis comes from what you ingest. That’s why I’ve been compelled to write this post at 2 Am in the morning (past midnight). He has shared his amazing experience of psoriasis healing in a collection of three articles. In this post, I am trying to summarize his experience in a comprehensive manner. Hope you would enjoy reading it.

Initial Experiences with Dermatologists

He got psoriasis at the age of 47. It was not a case of faulty genes. Initially, he ignored it. Gradually, within a period of six months, his body was quite occupied with psoriasis lesions. Both the hands and legs, fingernails and scalp- psoriasis was rapidly taking over everywhere. Due to no further scope of delay, he saw a dermatologist. The doctor gave him steroid pills (prednisone, a corticosteroid) and a topical cream. This diagnosis did wonders, especially the cream. His skin was clearing up very well without much efforts- just applying the cream on skin lesions; that’s it. It was an expensive treatment, but, his health insurance plans were helping him. To get faster results, he overdosed the steroids. He started applying cream as much as three times a day. Here, it went wrong. When he was told that it is an steroidal cream and your body would become addicted to it if used regularly- he started to cut down on the cream application. This idea back fired! The lesions started to appear back. Gradually, he felt no more motivated to use this cream and eventually he discarded it.

Then, he searched a lady dermatologist having a good reputation in treating psoriasis. She explained him quite in detail about the addictive nature of that steroidal cream and prescribed him methotrexate instead. Methotrexate is a well known immunosuppressant drug which is used to treat cancer and various auto-immune disorders including psoriasis. As expected, psoriasis responded well to methotrexate. He was prescribed a dose of 10 mg per week initially. Later, when his skin got clear, it was reduced to 7.5 mg per week for maintenance. Jeffrey never enjoyed taking medicines and he didn’t like this idea of consuming methotrexate almost forever.

An Attempt to try Alternative Healing

When his skin was almost clear, he quit methotrexate and started looking for alternative treatment. He explored various natural treatments with very little success. He vigorously searched on Google and YouTube and come across the term “Leaky Gut Syndrome“. He considered it as a turning point in his quest for natural treatment of psoriasis. He read the book “Psoriasis Healing: The Natural Alternative” written by Dr John Pagano and started following his diet protocol. It was not easy for a somewhat careless person like him to restrict his diet so much. But, when you are desperate to improve your life, sometimes you do things which would surprise even you later on.

Psoriasis Elimination Diet

Foods he avoided

• Nightshades (particularly the tomatoes, tomato ketchup, tomato sauce, pepper, paprika, eggplant, white potato, tobacco)
• Dairy
• Refined white flour
• Beef
• Red meat (lamb is permitted once a week)
• Processed meat
• Refined white sugar
• Gluten (Ezekiel bread which is made from sprouted grains without added sugar is allowed once or twice a week)
• Soda or any other carbonated beverage
• Fried foods

Once your skin is clear, you may start re-introducing these foods very cautiously. Introduce one food item at a time and observe the effects on skin. If psoriasis returns, immediately stop eating that.

Foods he would eat

He didn’t explain in detail his diet menu. Still, whatever he has written in his articles, I can figure out the below foods and recipes:

• Fish
• Non processed, whole chicken
• Brown rice
• Meat (in limited quantities only)
• A lot of Green vegetables- in raw form as well as in the form of smoothies

He would roast chicken, stuff it with vegetables and eat it along with brown rice. Sometimes, he would replace chicken with lamb cooked with ginger and garlic. Change in diet menu is interesting if you don’t let the forbidden foods enter.

Green smoothie recipe

He has given a lot of credit to his green smoothie recipe for psoriasis healing as well as weight loss. The recipe has below ingredients:

• One cup of green veggies such as spinach
• Almond milk or soy milk
• Protein powder (plant based only, not whey protein)
• Flax seeds or hemp seeds
• One cup of mixed fruits
• Powdered lecithin
• Stevia (for sweetness, as per taste)

Add all these ingredients and blend. Adjust the thickness with water and taste with almond milk (or stevia).

Enjoy this smoothie for two to three times a day.

Herbal Teas

He followed the diet protocol and drank the herbal teas- American Yellow Saffron tea and Slippery elm bark tea on a daily basis. Saffron tea tastes nice, but slippery elm bark taste weird. He suggests to drink saffron tea at night before going to bed and slippery elm bark tea in the morning.

According to the author, both the teas should be consumed. But, if, your budget needs you to choose one over the other, opt for slippery elm bark tea. The author is quite high about the digestive tract cleansing and strengthening properties of slippery elm bark tea.

Dietary supplements

Apart from herbal teas, he mentioned consuming below supplements. But, the dosage is not advised:

• Fish oil (provides Omega 3 fatty acids)
• Multivitamin supplements
• Evening Primrose oil (provides Gamma-linolenic acid, an essential omega 6 fatty acid)

Other Miscellaneous Tips

For external application, he advises any vitamin E based cream or anything else that suits you- except petroleum (coal tar) based products.

Colon cleansing is important, but the author is not a big fan of colon irrigation (enema).

He also mentioned using a humidifier in winter season to prevent skin dryness. Use of room heaters during winter can make the inside air utterly dry to strip off the natural moisture of your skin. A humidifier can neutralize the drying effect of room heaters to keep your skin moist.

Read more: How to manage Psoriasis in Winter

He advocated to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day.

This diet protocol not only clear his skin, but help him lose some weight also. That’s why he feels more energetic and positive in attitude now.

Advice to Fellow People with Psoriasis

Psoriasis is quite specific in nature and everyone is different. Hence, the author advises not to follow his treatment regimen blindly. Rather, he has below recommendations for fellow psoriatic people:

• If you are about to start a treatment for psoriasis, do consider the natural treatment approach before going for methotrexate or any other steroidal solution.
• Before starting the diet protocol, everyone should read Dr Pagano’s book thoroughly. It would help to understand the concept of leaky gut and how it affects psoriasis. Apart from the diet, this book has so many other ideas to offer which would definitely accelerate the healing process. Also, the cookbook offered by Dr Pagano is great. It offers more than 300 healthy recipes which can help you survive with the dietary restrictions.
• Although the book mentions that it took two to three months to clear the skin, it took him around 7 months to clear his skin. Hence, natural healing takes time and we should be patient enough to give it a decent try without expecting miraculous results very soon.
• Psoriasis is stubborn in nature. Even after clearing up, psoriasis do returns sometimes, especially during winter. But, not as intense as it was earlier. Also, now he knows how to tackle it. Hence, don’t get frustrated if it returns. Sooner or later, we have to accept that it is a part of our live. Just get strict with your treatment protocol and you would be fine.
• Finally, the author advises not to discontinue any existing treatment without consulting the doctor. It is just a personal experience of the author and he do not claim any medical expertise. He designed his own psoriasis elimination diet by following the recommendations of Dr Pagano book and he encourages the fellow psoriatic people to try so.

References

http://hubpages.com/health/Psoriasis-Cured

http://hubpages.com/health/Beating-Psoriasis