My daughter had these little red bumps on her arms that the local G.P confidently told me was Keratosis Pilaris.
This is a common skin condition caused by a build up of keratin in the pores of the skin that causes blockages and subsequently pimple like bumps on the arms or legs.
After researching Keratosis Pilaris myself I wasn’t completely convinced as the bumps usually appear on the back of the upper arms and our toddler had them on her forearms.
The bumps were also a little angrier than your garden variety Keratosis Pilaris (also known as KP) so I went back to the G.P and asked for a referral to a skin specialist.
Three minutes (not including the one and a half hours in the waiting room) and $375 later I was again told by the dermatologist that it was Keratosis Pilaris and that there was nothing I could do about it except to put an over the counter moisturizer on it for relief, and that it would probably settle down on it’s own.
Well it didn’t. In actual fact it got even worse and was obviously causing quite a bit of discomfort with my little one scratching her arms and constantly pulling up her sleeves to stop anything from rubbing on her forearms. Poor little mite.
We decided that enough was enough so we bit the bullet and took her to a very well respected and long serving (40 years in the same practice) Naturopath in our area. I must admit that I was a bit skeptical at first but our bub was in obvious discomfort and we were getting to the stage where we would try just about anything.
The Naturopath walked into the treatment room (we only waited 15 minutes!) and introduced himself. He then asked who the patient was. I motioned to my daughter and was about to tell him her symptoms when he held up his hand to stop me and said “Don’t say anything – I will tell you what the problem is.”
OK – This was more like it.
He took a large magnifying glass and looked into our toddler eyes (iridology) for less than one minute before telling me that she had a slight fungal infection in the bottom of her lungs that would probably begin to manifest itself (if it hadn’t already) in a bumpy, itchy skin rash on her arms or legs!
He also mentioned that her thyroid was slightly over active and that would explain why she had not been eating very well recently. I didn’t even realise that could have been a problem as all toddlers are erratic eaters at the best of times and ours is no exception.
I was a bit surprised at the speed and accuracy of the diagnosis. I had not mentioned any of the problems to him or his receptionist when making the appointment and my daughters’ arms were covered with a loose fitting, long sleeve t-shirt in the treatment room so there was no way he could have known.
He then gave me two liquid tonics made from natural herbs (he has made his own natural remedies for decades) and told me to give her five mls three times a day until it was finished and that it would clear up the fungal infection within a couple of weeks and restore her thyroid to normal working condition.
I felt a little weird giving my bubby a mixture I knew nothing about and that was not prescribed by a traditional medical doctor but the diagnosis was so spot on and the Naturopath had been in business for such a long time that we decided to give it a go.
Well you will be happy to know that two weeks later the rash has almost completely gone and our toddler is eating like a horse again. Un-friggin-believable! She even ran her hands over her forearms the other day and said, “look daddy – no bumps!” God bless her.
The only real problem we had was getting her to take the foul smelling liquid and I will go into the details of that in another post. Quite funny really.
Another bonus is that it only cost $35 for the consultation and $70 for the natural tonics. We didn’t care about the money (we would have paid anything to fix the problem) we just wanted a correct diagnosis and treatment and this Naturopath hit the nail on the head.
I can’t tell you how happy we are that our little one is no longer in any discomfort and is eating properly again. I would highly recommend this particular Naturopath to anyone, so much so that we are thinking of making him our first port of call whenever we need medical advice instead of our last resort.
Natural is best…
P.S. Due to the responses below I have written a little more about the experience to hopefully help clarify the point of the article. Please click here to follow.
