This sheet covers eczema, itchy rashes, hives and the other skin troubles that come from the body pushing its waste out through the skin. It also covers cradle cap, and how to support a baby who is too young yet for a liver flush. Poison ivy, skin infections and wounds, and skin cancer each have their own sheets.
Understanding the Condition
How the Healthy Skin Works
The skin is the largest organ of the body, and it is far more than a covering. It is our third lung: through thousands of tiny pores the body breathes in the air around it and lets out waste in the sweat. In health the skin carries only a small, light share of the cleansing work. The heavy work belongs to the liver, which gathers the waste from the blood, and to the bowel and kidneys, which carry it out.
What Goes Wrong
When the liver, the body’s vacuum bag, gets full, and especially when the bowels are not moving well, the waste has to go somewhere. The body begins to detox through the skin. The skin was never built to handle that load of toxic waste, and it breaks down quickly: red patches, tiny pimples that turn to water blisters, weeping, crusting, dry scales and cracks, and an itch that can be almost unbearable. Scratching breaks the skin open and invites infection on top of it.
When the liver is clear, its waste goes down to the bowel. When it is full, the waste is pushed out through the skin. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.
- Eczema is this pattern settled in: dry, red, itchy, sometimes weeping skin that flares and calms and flares again. It often begins in babies and young children.
- Hives are the same push coming on fast: raised, itchy welts after an insect sting, a food the body can’t tolerate, or a load of waste cut loose all at once.
- Psoriasis brings thick, silvery scales. The real answer is the same: clear the liver so it stops pushing its waste out through the skin. Then the body clears the skin quickly, and the salves on this sheet can do their work.
- What feeds it: a congested bowel; junk and processed foods and heavy, mucus-forming foods, which make the sweat sticky so it dries and clogs the pores; synthetic clothing that doesn’t let the skin breathe; and stress.
The longer it goes on, the harder it is to turn around. A fresh flare can clear in a day or two. But when the skin has been used as the way out for years or decades, the body comes to treat it as normal and begins to protect the problem. It then takes time, repeated liver flushing and cleansing of the whole body to redirect the waste. Any weakness, and the body will want to go back to the skin route.
Cradle Cap or Eczema?
In a baby the two can look alike, but they are not the same thing. Cradle cap shows as greasy, yellowish scales or crust, starting on the scalp. It is linked to a yeast that lives on the skin, and it can travel to the face, behind the ears, into the skin folds and the diaper area (Health New Zealand). Because it is a fungus, Black Walnut is the answer for it. Eczema is dry, red and itchy, without the greasy scales on the scalp; it is liver and skin work. A baby can have both at once.
Know the Signs, and When to Get Help
Get help right away if the skin breaks out in clusters of painful blisters or punched-out sores with a fever, especially in a baby or in someone with eczema. This can be a serious virus infection of the skin.
Skin that weeps yellow, crusts like honey, turns hot and red and spreading, or comes with a fever has become infected. A baby that young needs checking right away. The Infection: Skin & Wounds sheet covers the infection work.
Hives with swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or any trouble breathing, is an emergency.
The Emotional Side: the Energy Work
Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing.
The skin is where we meet the world, and how we look in our skin affects how we feel and how others treat us. Stress is one of the strongest triggers I see: skin that was almost clear flares again after a hard week. Learning to lay the stress down is part of the healing.
Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:
- Skin: “Protects our individuality. A sense organ.” Turn it around: “I feel safe to be me.”
- Skin problems: “Anxiety, fear. Old, buried guck. I am being threatened.” Turn it around: “I lovingly protect myself with thoughts of joy and peace. The past is forgiven and forgotten. I am free in this moment.”
- Eczema: “Breath-taking antagonism. Mental eruptions.” Turn it around: “Harmony and peace, love and joy surround me and indwell me. I am safe and secure.”
- Itching: “Desires that go against the grain. Unsatisfied. Remorse. Itching to get out or get away.” Turn it around: “I am at peace just where I am. I accept my good, knowing all my needs and desires will be fulfilled.”
- Psoriasis: “Fear of being hurt. Deadening the senses of the self. Refusing to accept responsibility for our own feelings.” Turn it around: “I am alive to the joys of living. I deserve and accept the very best in life. I love and approve of myself.”
- Rash: “Irritation over delays. Babyish way to get attention.” Turn it around: “I love and approve of myself. I am at peace with the process of life.”
- Hives: “Small, hidden fears. Mountains out of molehills.” Turn it around: “I bring peace to every corner of my life.”
Emotional patterns quoted from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.
Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing
The trouble shows on the skin, but the skin is not where it starts. The work is to clear the liver, keep the bowel carrying the waste out, support the kidneys, and spare the skin while it heals.
Opening the Way to Healing
1. Clear the blockage.
2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.
3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.
4. Bathe regularly.
5. Move the area as much as you can.
6. Know which area is truly affected. With skin trouble, the trouble shows on the skin, but the liver is where it is held. Clear the liver so the waste goes out through the bowel, and the skin can heal.
Keep the Program Cayenne-Free
Cayenne is one of our most valued herbs, but it encourages the body to detox through the skin. While the skin is being abused this way, we must not push more through it. Anyone clearing a skin problem, light or serious, should keep the whole program free of cayenne:
- LBF #1, no cayenne, not the regular LBF.
- Plain Echinacea, not Echinacea Plus.
- The Blood Purifying Formula, not the Detox Formula.
- No hot lemonade or cayenne tea, and no Herbal Aid 1, which contains cayenne.
The ELF itself has no cayenne in it.
Clear the Liver: the ELF
The answer to skin trouble is always to clear the liver, so it stops pushing its toxic waste out through the skin. Once it is clear, the body clears the skin quickly, and the salves become effective. When what should be working isn’t working, it is time to flush the liver.
- A fresh flare: one strong ELF will clear most acute skin trouble, often very quickly. See my liver flushing directions.
- Long-standing skin trouble: repeated ELFs, the five-day week of liver flushing as needed, and cleansing of the whole body over months. Don’t be discouraged if it comes back after a good clearing; that is the body’s old habit, and each round weakens it.
- During the ELF, if nausea or bloating comes up, 2 teaspoons each of L/P and Digestive Tonic in a little hot water settles it.
Keep the Bowel and Kidneys Moving
- LBF #1, no cayenne. Build up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. People who need more than 5 capsules often prefer it without the cayenne anyway.
- Kidney Support, and kidney flushing for itching that won’t let go.
- The Blood Purifying Formula, as directed on its formula sheet. It is our cayenne-free blood cleanser, and it supports the liver to detox properly.
- Plain Echinacea when the skin is open, weeping or infected. If you have an autoimmune condition, talk with Dara before starting. Echinacea can overstimulate an immune system that is already attacking the body. In its place we use astragalus and marshmallow root, which is much slower, so the whole program has to be done more gently.
Using Chaparral With Care
Chaparral is one of the herbs in the Blood Purifying Formula. It has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use and has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Stay at the dose on the formula sheet. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.
Calming the Itch and Healing the Skin
Hot and cold showers for the itch. This is the quickest way I have found to stop the itch and knock out the inflammation. A handheld shower head works best. Run the water as hot as you can take without scalding, over the itchy area, for a minute or so; it pulls fresh blood into the area and scratches the itch without wrecking the skin. Then switch quickly to completely cold for a minute or so, driving the blood deep through the area so the body can clear what is causing the inflammation. Seven hots and seven colds seem to work best. For me the relief lasts for hours; repeat when the itch returns.
The ginger bath. Ginger supports the downward motion, so the body moves its waste down toward the bowels and not out toward the skin. Use ginger powder only; fresh ginger is too caustic. For an adult, 1 to 2 cups of ginger powder in a tub of tepid water, depending on the size of the tub and the person, and soak 30 to 45 minutes. Rinse off with clear water at the end of the soak. Ginger is drying to the skin, so put on the Healing Salve or BF&C Salve right after. For an adult this is a short-term support while the ELF does the real work.
The salves, in order:
- Healing Salve during a flare. When the skin is red, hot, itchy or weeping, the Healing Salve takes down the inflammation and relieves the dry, itchy skin. It can be used as a pack under flannel.
- BF&C Salve once a patch has calmed but is still dry, cracked, rough or thickened. It rebuilds the skin.
- Give the skin at least 6 hours a day open, free of salve, so it can breathe.
- Black Walnut for fungus, such as cradle cap or a rash that behaves like yeast. Start with the Black Walnut Salve. If that isn’t strong enough, dab on the Black Walnut extract full strength with a cotton ball. It will stain the skin for a few days or weeks.
Both the Healing Salve and BF&C contain comfrey root, used on the skin. Use them as directed; more is not faster.
Bathing and clothing. Bathe regularly so dried sweat doesn’t clog the pores. Olive leaf soap is gentle and cleansing. Wear and sleep in natural fibers, such as cotton, linen, wool and silk, so the skin can breathe; synthetics hold the waste against it.
Sunshine and fresh air. The sun is a true healer, and fresh air over the skin helps it clear. Build up slowly, and cover with light clothing, a hat or shade once you have had enough for the day.
Food
- Clean up the food program. Cut the junk, processed foods and sugar, and lean on fresh vegetables, fruit and whole foods. Heavy, mucus-forming foods make the sweat sticky and clog the pores.
- Know your own triggers. For me, even a bit of pork brings it on overnight.
- Juices: carrot and cucumber.
- Drink plenty of distilled water, so the kidneys can carry their share of the load.
Supporting a Baby Until the Liver Is Ready
An adult can do an ELF and clear the issue quickly. A baby can’t yet. The liver and the stomach need time to mature before they can do the work needed to clear it up, and a child needs to be about two years old before an ELF. Until then, the baby is supported, so the skin is as comfortable as possible while it waits. Then the liver can be cleared.
- Mom does the cleansing. For a nursing baby, the mother’s food program and cleansing reach the baby through her milk. A nursing mother takes regular adult doses; the baby gets only a small amount, which usually only helps. Her own ELF, bowel work and clean food program may be the strongest help the baby has. A good probiotic in Mom’s diet helps too.
- The ginger bath: ¼ cup of ginger powder in a baby bathtub of tepid water, and soak 15 to 20 minutes, every other day or so. Rinse with clear water at the end, then put on the salve right away, since ginger dries the skin.
- Olive leaf soap for the bath. It is not too strong for a baby’s skin.
- The salves: Healing Salve on the red, itchy, flaring patches, and BF&C Salve on the patches that have calmed but are still dry or cracked. The salve is safe; its oils are light. Still, try it on one small spot first, so you know the child won’t react strangely. It is the responsible thing to do and makes everyone comfortable.
- Cradle cap: Black Walnut Salve on the scalp first; if that isn’t strong enough, the Black Walnut extract full strength on a cotton ball. Expect a stain for a few days or weeks.
- Lobelia for a gassy baby: 1 or 2 drops of the Antispasmodic for a young baby. It relaxes the stomach muscles so the gas can pass more easily. It is also a mild nervine.
- Keep the bowels open. If the baby is backed up, see my sheet on the enema for an infant or young child.
- Cotton next to the skin, in clothes and bedding.
More Is Not Faster
These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.
People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.
Level of Commitment
- Gentle support. A fresh flare, an itchy rash or a crop of hives: one strong ELF, the hot and cold showers, the Healing Salve and then BF&C. Often clear in a day or two.
- Focused cleansing. Eczema that keeps coming back: a cayenne-free program, repeated ELFs and a week of liver flushing as needed, LBF #1 no cayenne, kidney flushing, a clean food program, and the salves, over a few months.
- Incurables Program. Skin trouble that has gone on for years or decades, where the body has made the skin its normal way out: the whole body has to be cleansed and rebuilt, gently and steadily, with the skin spared all along.
- A baby: support, not clearing, until about age two; see the section above.
A Loose Healing Plan
- Day 1: go cayenne-free. Do a strong ELF. Hot and cold showers whenever the itch flares. Healing Salve on the angry skin.
- Days 2 and 3: watch the skin. Most fresh flares clear quickly once the liver is flushed. Move to BF&C Salve on the patches that have calmed.
- If it has gone on a long time: settle in for months. Get the bowels moving with LBF #1, no cayenne. Flush the liver again as needed, with a week of liver flushing when it keeps returning. Add kidney flushing. Clean up the food. Ginger baths to keep the waste moving down.
- All along: the heart work. Notice what stress does to your skin, and lay it down.
- For a baby: Mom’s cleansing and food program, ginger baths every other day or so, olive leaf soap, the salves after a test spot, Black Walnut for cradle cap, until the child is about two and ready for an ELF.
Stories from the Work
Dara’s Story: The Pork That Taught Me
Several summers ago I went to a Chinese restaurant, and long story short, I ended up eating a bit of pork. This is something I absolutely cannot tolerate. By bedtime I had small red, pimple-looking bumps all over my arms, chest and legs. They itched, and by morning they had begun weeping a clear liquid and the itch was almost unbearable.
For two weeks I did all the topical remedies, packing my arms and legs with BF&C Salve and taking high doses of the extract, along with Echinacea six days a week. I did hot and cold showers three or four times a day; they were the only thing that gave any relief from the constant itching. After two weeks with no improvement I finally took my own advice: when nothing is working, flush the liver.
I did a strong liver flush first thing in the morning, and by bedtime I was about 70% cleared. At the end of the second day of liver flushing my skin was completely healthy again. I could have saved myself two weeks of misery. I’m sure the BF&C I’d been using played a part in the fast healing once the cause was gone.
Dara’s Story: My Daughter at a Year Old
At six months my daughter’s angelic face and sparkling personality could draw a crowd of admirers out of thin air; a quick trip to the store could take hours. She was a year old when she developed cradle cap, and at the same time her soft pink cheeks and chin turned horribly dry and cracked. I believe it was a fungus, so it could travel.
One afternoon in the checkout line she bubbled and flashed her captivating smile, and not one person looked at her. She had no idea why, and she was crestfallen. I washed her with the black walnut soaps that were recommended to me; I wasn’t making anything of my own yet. Her skin cleared quickly, and her admirers came back.
A Good Friend: When the Skin Won’t Let Go
A good friend has had eczema since childhood, and he has fought it for more than twenty years. He has done more ELFs than anyone should have to, including five in a row, with good results. But it always comes back: it almost goes away, and then some stress and it returns. His work is very stressful. His skin shows how hard the body holds on once the skin has become its way out, and how much the heart work matters.
From Dr. Christopher: The Girl Who Went Back to School
A mother came to Dr. Christopher in near hysteria. For several years her fourteen-year-old daughter had suffered a severe, thick, heavy scaling of the skin, from the knees down, the elbows down, and over her neck and face. Doctors, skin specialists and allergists had no name for it and called it incurable. The girl had stopped going to school, church and parties, and the mother was frightened for her life.
He gave them the Bone, Flesh & Cartilage formula to use as a fomentation over the affected areas and as a tea to drink. By Friday of that same week the scabs and scales were gone and her skin had a healing glow. Six months later she was a cheerleader at the school she had gone back to, and busy again in church and with her friends.
Credited to Dr. John R. Christopher.
Dara’s Story: A Friend Covered in Hives
In 1999, before the association was going, an older friend from church was brought to my house by her daughter. She had been covered with hives and itching everywhere for nearly two years. The jewelweed salve I made then calmed the itch; today we use the Healing Salve for itch.
She stayed with me and did her ELF. That evening, as she got ready for bed, her mouth began to water and she was on the verge of vomiting. I handed her the cup of L/P and Digestive Tonic I had ready, she knocked it back, and within a few minutes she was fine and took herself off to bed. By noon the next day she was about 70% clear of the hives. She needed several more ELFs to clear it completely, because it had been allowed to go on in her body for nearly two years.
The longer an issue goes unchecked, the longer it takes to clear. The body begins to protect the badness as normal, and you have the work of clearing it while you redirect the body to accept that it needs to be cleared.
More on Eczema, Skin & Itch
- Infection: Skin & Wounds
- Skin Cancer
- A Healing Salve to Keep on Hand
- Knitting Bone, Flesh and Cartilage Back Together
- Black Walnut: Nature’s Strongest Antifungal
- Eleven Herbs for a Deep Blood Cleanse
- Echinacea: Telling the Immune System to Gear Up
- Mullein and Lobelia: Letting Locked Muscles Go
- Enema for an Infant or Young Child
- ELF; Liver Flushing Updates
- Stopping the Itch Naturally
