Well, after almost three years of relatively symptom-free living, I thought I was pretty much out of the woods. As the months passed and I stopped getting itchy and rashy, I slowly incorporated more and more medium-to-high nickel foods back into my diet, and my body seemed to be able to tolerate them.
Unfortunately, a cluster of small life events seems to have brought back facial swelling, facial rashes (which look like a repeat of my childhood eczema), and some light itchy forearm bumps.
Here is what it looked like at it’s worst, the morning after Christmas. It’s almost like I’m wearing a thick pink Phantom-of-the-Opera mask that has the added bonus of flaking, oozing, and being downright annoying.
I didn’t want to immediately jump back to nickel being the culprit, after all I’d been doing so well and was healthier than ever! However, it was hard to ignore the evidence:
- Diet: My husband and I switched to a plant-based diet around the end of summer, and have been increasing our leafy greens, fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds, while almost entirely eliminating meat and dairy. Lettuce, dates, cashews, raspberries and a myriad of other high nickel offenders were back on the menu, seemingly with no problems except feeling light and healthy with fantastic bowel movements.
- Season: We left the humid summer and wet autumn behind for the cold, harsh dry Wisconsin winter. I should have been drinking more water to compensate, I should have been moisturizing more regularly, but I didn’t.
- Stress #1: Two key players at work announced an end-of-year retirement, which prompted by boss to apply for one of the positions and sowed some questions about how my department would be restructured. Unfortunately, it’s all still up in the air so it’s something that has been on my mind a lot lately when thinking how my career will look in 2018.
- Stress #2: I started practicing martial arts again after a 5 year hiatus (which, coincidentally, is probably around the time my original rashes appeared), and have been feeling anxious about my physical fitness and ability to remember/perform some of the moves.
- Wild Card: I got an ear piercing to celebrate my birthday in November, and although my piercing is 18 carat gold, who knows if it or the piercing tool contained enough nickel to create a catalyst reaction and push my body into nickel overload.
It was at the start of December that I started waking up feeling puffy-eyed, although not badly, and began to once again feel itchy around my eyes and surprisingly, the rest of my face.
It’s looking like I will be scaling back the leafy green intake in 2018, and doubling up on the moisturizing. I picked up some Curel lotion specifically for eczema skin and it’s been a godsend. My mother also took pity on me and sent along some Manuka Cream, which I think is made from honey. It definitely helps slick down my patchy/flaky skin. That’s one annoying part of the healing process, you look like a a lizard person who is constantly shedding their skin.
Fingers crossed I can kick the rashes asap in 2018!
Living Nickel Free 