dc, re yesterday's question re bloodwork, anything?
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/diet-f9/t ... ml#p192481
in general if you are getting worse on this diet, my first instinct is to look for nutritional gaps in your personal interpretation of the guidelines. but first a relevant little tangent...
re the pilonidal thing - years ago i had a sore on my butt. on a completely unrelated tangent i had figured out i was zinc deficient and took steps. the sore which had remained open for years, healed spontaneously. awesome.
later, i had a sore at the base of my spine, more like what you're saying. i don't have the exact timing, but around that time i had taken to having zinc every other day instead of daily. i went back to daily zinc, because i noticed more susceptibility to infection. now that i'm back on daily zinc my back is healed up.
i have a co-worker that had a pilonidal cyst removed and it didn't heal for AGES. she is also having trouble getting pregnant. the whole situation just screams zinc but she's not one to buy in - so be it.
here's a study on using zinc .. after the fact
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial evaluating topical zinc oxide for acute open wounds following pilonidal disease excision
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17014663
"...Sixty-four (53 men) consecutive patients, aged 17-60 years, were centrally randomized to either treatment with 3% zinc oxide (n = 33) or placebo (n = 31) by concealed allocation. Patients were followed with strict recording of beneficial and harmful effects including masked assessment of time to complete wound closure. Analysis was carried out on an intention-to-treat basis.
Median healing times were 54 days (interquartile range 42-71 days) for the zinc and 62 days (55-82 days) for the placebo group (p = 0.32).
Topical zinc oxide increased (p < 0.001) wound fluid zinc levels to 1,540 (1,035-2,265) microM and
decreased (p < 0.05) the occurrence of Staphylococcus aureus in wounds. Fewer zinc oxide (n = 3) than placebo-treated patients (n = 12) were prescribed postoperative antibiotics (p = 0.005). Serum-zinc levels increased (p < 0.001) postoperatively in both groups but did not differ significantly between the two groups on day 7."
the reason this study is a joke, is the zinc oxide concentration. at least they did heal slightly faster than the placebo group via using the weak zinc oxide treatment. the topical penaten cream i used to heal my face when i wiped out, is 18% concentration. i healed at light speed according to my docs, fast even for facial healing (which is supposed to be pretty fast). with 3% concentration, every scrap would be going straight to dealing with the surgical trauma, none left over to hang around in serum. no wonder serum zinc levels were not significantly different between groups at the end of day 7! i ask you. what passes for science sometimes....
all that aside, they should have tried the zinc treatment at a decent concentration BEFORE the surgical intervention. just my 2c.
if you measure and address your zinc status, you may find these sores healing, and an improvement in your eczema.
and so, some questions:
1. are you supplementing zinc?
2. if so, how much?
3. do you also supplement vit d3?
4. if so, how much?
5. if you take both, how do you time them? together, or separate?
as for the diet, can you give me three typical days' intakes of foods and liquids?
an aside in case you're interested, re zinc deficiency in little ones, and 'periorificial parakeratotic lesions' (the other sore i had prior to the one in the pilonidal sinus location).
zinc treatment for the hereditary form:
Acrodermatitis enteropathica: case report and review of the literature
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12383101
Acrodermatitis enteropathica (AE) is a rare hereditary disorder caused by
impaired absorption of zinc from the gastrointestinal tract. It is characterized by acral and
periorificial dermatitis, alopecia, and diarrhea. Symptoms usually begin on weaning from breast or formula feeding. We report a full-term, 21-month-old boy with typical skin lesions and decreased plasma zinc level (12 µg/dl). The patient was given zinc sulfate 40 mg/day and at the end of 1 month his condition had improved significantly. After reviewing the literature we emphasize the important role of zinc in human metabolism and the difference between AE and acquired zinc deficiencies.
Acrodermatitis Enteropathica-like Dermatosis Associated with Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17845164
The urea cycle is the major metabolic pathway for excretion of waste nitrogen.
Ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency is the most frequent urea cycle disorder. It is a hereditary-X-linked disease with over 150 mutations described (1).Ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency causes vomiting, lethargy, hyperventilation, and even death, mainly in the neonatal period (2). Ammonia, an extremely toxic molecule for the organism, is generated during protein catabolism and is accumulated in patients with this deficiency. Part of the treatment consists of a low-protein diet, to avoid hyperammonemia episodes, which can even have a fatal outcome. Patients can become deficient in several amino acids, either through the low-protein diet or directly through the primary enzyme deficiency; this in turn can cause an acrodermatitis enteropathica-like dermatosis.
(in both the hereditary and acquired contexts, this is a straight line zinc issue - when the zinc goes down, the urea cycle is broken and ammonia goes up. the low-protein diet idea is missing the point. you need protein, but you must have adequate zinc to make ornithine transcarbamylase. as noted in a recent abstract posted elsewhere ('the MS liver', i believe?), babies have wildly variable liver stores of zinc at birth. betcha these kids with hereditary AE have next to none..)
ooh how very wahlsian, the mitochondria made an appearance in this one:
Processing of pre-ornithine transcarbamylase requires a zinc-dependent protease localized to the mitochondrial matrix
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7046739
too bad, no abstract. but you see the point.