Here in our Hypnotherapy clinic in Vancouver I often see many children, particularly teenagers, expeskin-diseaseriencing skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. These young people may have been put on a variety of medications by their doctors that often have only limited effects and can cause additional side-effects or even exacerbate the condition.
There are many causes of skin conditions including genetic polymorphism, infected intestines with bad bacteria or viruses, poor diet, allergies, nervousness or the result of poisoning or medications.
Doctors and even specialists can often prescribe an array of medications because they simply do not know what else to do or their training has only been centered around prescribing drugs. The parent, desperate for a solution, may follow blindly, trying regimes for years that yield no or little results. Meanwhile, the child may go from bad to worse.
Children develop their own immune system around 18 months old at the time when most weaning stops and they move onto solid foods. As children grow, it is important they get a wide range of nutrients to build their healthy body.
The wrong foods, such as high saturated fats and sugars can cause cardio vascular disease 60 years later and in the meantime they slow the liver down from expelling sufficient toxins from the body.
The liver, with the gut, is the seat of all health in naturopathic medicine and if it is not functioning at high capacity, the body begins to push toxins out through the skin.
Many children may be sensitive to particular food groups, species or genus. In healthy children, those foods may be tolerated, but in children with an unbalanced gut, there may be a disturbance in the wall of the gut. This allows toxins and allergens to leak directly into the blood system, which then move to the rest of the body, causing an allergic reaction on the skin.
For some children, this is present from birth but for others it may emerge later in childhood. As a hypnotherapist, I take a great deal of information from the family to screen for the causes of inflammation, irritation and allergic reactions in the child. While children are generally hardy creatures, we all encounter foods that may not be right for us.
Emotionally disturbed, nervous or stressed children may experience damage to their guts due to tension that puts them into the fight or flight response when proper digestion and the correct immune responses are suspended.
Not only must the children be treated physically, they also need help to redress their emotional wellbeing. As a clinical hypnotherapist, I find children marvellous hypnotic subjects who respond very well to hypnotherapy to help reduce their stress or anxiety and therefore restore good gut health.
What you can do for your child who has a skin condition:
• See a naturopath who works with children and skin conditions
• Be prepared to do a great deal of monitoring of your child in order to analyse what is happening to them so the cause of the skin condition can be worked out
• See a hypnotherapist, Make the experience a happy one for your child and remain calm,
• When you are asked to follow a treatment plan, follow it to the letter without exception
• Do everything you possibly can to support your child and the changes they will need to make
• Enlist the help of your family, friends and the school in helping your child stay with the treatment plan