For many people, a dairy-free diet helps them clear their eczema or at least reduce the severity of flare-ups. Since dairy products are a major trigger for eczema it is an important element in my diet to avoid foods that contain milk proteins.
Dairy products are things like cow’s milk, cream, cheese, and yogurt, but also other foods can have ingredients that contain milk proteins. Fortunately, international regulations advice to have these allergens in the ingredient list on food products and the word milk must be included.
It was after a long period of bad eczema that I first started looking for other people’s experiences with diet change, as a way to treat atopic eczema.
I came across a post on the internet, where a guy describes how dietary changes have made his eczema disappear. Especially the exclusion of dairy and cow’s milk had made a great impact.
Motivated by the prospect of an eczema-free life, I instantly stopped drinking milk and also refrained from eating products that contained milk as an ingredient.
After a short while my eczema almost disappeared and to test if milk was the cause, we did some quite unscientific tests at home with me as a guinea pig. The test was to refrain from all kinds of dairy products and then drink a small amount of milk after a couple of eczema-free days. The result was clear every time. After a minute or so of having milk eczema came again and always first as a tingling sensation in the skin which after a day became a visible eczema flare-up.
As an alternative to milk, I use oat milk from the supermarket. It is really good in coffee and muesli is now something I can eat again. In addition, oat milk has the advantage of very long shelf life and it stays fresh in the open state as long as it is in the refrigerator.
There are a growing number of brands so you have to test out which one you like the best.
A dairy-free diet seems to do the trick
Online you will find a lot of similar stories of eczema healing by excluding cows’ milk and dairy from your dairy. A good example of such a story is the one from Susan Marque in her post I Almost Died from Eczema: How a Nondairy Diet Saved Me.
It can be a combination of eczema and food allergies that make the road to healing more difficult. In this article from Healthline.com – How to Create an Eczema-Friendly Diet, this aspect is explained in an easy-to-understand way.
It reinforces my own experience in adjusting my diet to a dairy-free one and tells me that there is more to this subject than the established healthcare system and the dairy industry like to tell us.
Goodbye to sore throat
When I drank cow’s milk and ate dairy products I had a sore throat every winter. It was a recurring phenomenon and if you have had a sore throat once, you know how painful it can be. Therefore, I was very relieved as after the first milk-free winter I had not had a sore throat.
It has been like that since my diet change abstaining from dairy and cows milk.
Prostate cancer
If you are a man then your risk of having prostate cancer is increased by drinking milk. The higher the amount of fats in the milk, the more fatal the prostate cancer will be. High-fat content translates into aggressive cancer, whereas skimmed milk increases the chances of low-impact cancer. But both increase the overall risk of attracting this cancer that is widely spread in countries with a western diet high in sugars, processed foods, and dairy products.
You can read all about how a dairy-free diet has helped me to become eczema-free in my book Ezcema Healing Guide. But also just as important as why I just had to write a book, so that other eczema-sufferers can be inspired by my long journey to eczema-healing.