As time is pressing forward and my cognitive function continues to improve my memory of months 1-4 off steroids is starting to return and I am recalling things I did that were helpful.
April 2012, a month before coming off steroids, we met a woman whose son got eczema in the first couple months he was alive. He was allergic to all foods and breast milk, as well as most formulas. The mother suggested to me that maybe I could try replacing my meals with Neocate Jr. Unflavored formula for a month as it is what helped heal her sons eczema. He was about 7 or 8 yrs old and only able to add about 5 foods into his diet, his main diet was Neocate Jr. The thing that stuck in my mind was that she never used topical steroids ever on his body. (Her story was quite motivating as the boy had suffered terribly for the first 2 years of his life without much relief.)
The reason why I considered her commentary as beneficial was for 2 reasons.
1- My mother had just learned about RSS a few weeks earlier and we were preparing to take me off of steroids, which I had used since I was one month old and now 36 years later I was unable to completely getting rid of the eczema. This woman had NEVER allowed her son to use any topical medications on his eczema and he looked really fantastic.
2- Just a year before meeting that woman, a close friend of mine had a son who suffered from severe allergies and was finally diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis, or EE for short, (Malisha’s blogging at: http://ee-specialneeds-survivingparenthood.blogspot.com/?m=0) when he was around 6. She took him to several of the top hospitals in the country and they prescribed him Neocate Jr. It became his only “food” for around 3 months while they were waiting for his esophagus to heal. Not only did he finally gain weight and have vast physical improvement, his cognitive function returned to normal. (He was showing signs of autistic behavior due to malnutrition as a result of the EE. But after 3 months of Neocate Jr. He was able to start doing math problems in his head, he held normal conversations, started smiling and laughing a lot more. Clearly not Autistic…)
When you pray for clear direction and answers and you start learning about a particularly random therapeutic possibility from totally unrelated people, you think to yourself “well, it can’t hurt.”
So I went on Amazon.com and ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of Neocate Jr. (unflavored) and then called the company and spoke with a dietician who made recommendations of what amount I would use to replace each meal with. My diet for May-June 2012 (months 1 & 2 off of steroids) consisted of a baked sweet potatoe that I drizzles olive oil and sprinkled “real salt” for breakfast. Lunch and dinner was a shake made of water, neocate Jr., 1/2 an avocado, 1 tablespoon of either “dandy blend” or cocoa powder, a banana and a bit of agave syrup. By July 2012 I started consuming regular foods and only replaced lunch with the Neocate shake. By the end of August 2012 I felt like I didn’t need the Neocate Jr. anymore so I stopped taking it.
Based on my understanding of nutrition and the Neocate Jr. Ingredients, here are some of the benefits of Neocate Jr. Formula. It’s made up of all the essential amino acids that your brain and body needs to rejuvenate cells and tissue. It also has a high percentage of Lauric Acid derived from Coconut Oil which helps the body grow and fight infection. (Lauric acid is only found in breast milk and coconut oil.) There are also other Omegas oils components from the other oils which are anti-inflammatory and also tissue builders. Also the formula provides all the necessary nourishment the body needs and is considered hypoallergenic and acceptable for those with extreme allergies, EE and those to who can experience anafalactic shock.
During Topical Steroid Withdrawals, especially the first 3-5 months, your body rejects the skin, shedding rapidly resulting in open wounds. So the body tries to rebuild cells and tissue rapidly. The immune system is also severely compromised and prone to infection resulting in an excessive obligatory load for the lymphatic system to pick up. Thus the lymph nodes swell, backing up, which results in excessive edema in the body. Plus the whole endocrine system goes bazurck.
Since the Neocate Jr. gives the body everything it needs to form the proteins it needs to create new cells and tissue, reduce inflammation, fight infection by building the immune system and keep the body nourished it seemed to be the right thing for me to be on. Although the naturopathic community and homeopathic physicians would probably be against the manufactured product, I think it greatly assisted my body’s ability to heal. Had I the brain function to analyze all of this I probably would have taken huge amounts of essential amino acid supplements, Superfood (by Dr. Schulze at herbdoc.com), cold expeller-pressed flaxseed oil with lignans and cold expeller-pressed extra-virgin coconut oil and add fruit to make a smoothie (for the antioxidants) 3 times a day instead of the Neocate Jr. But since I couldn’t think, Neocate Jr. was the way to go.
The one thing the Neocate Jr. Formula did ensure was that I wouldn’t have any allergic reactions on top of what my body was going through. Since people with atopic dermatitis and eczema suffer from allergic reactions, replacing meals with something hypoallergenic seemed to make sense to me.
I am totally not working for Neocate, LOL. You can get the same results from taking the essential amino acid supplements if you add coconut oil and omega oils to it. However, you can get Neocate Jr. prescribed by a physician and covered by health insurance if you don’t have the money to buy all the ingredients regularly. That’s also an upside.
Just throwing that out there.
eczemancipated 