Success Story: 5 Insights From Italian Ex-Eczema Patient Mattia

Ciao! Today you will witness an inspirational story that spans across continents, featuring a strong-willed and remarkable eczema warrior from Milan, Italy. 

This post has three-parts:

• The Beginning of the End 
• Eczema Transformation Photos
• 5 Things I Learnt from Mattia

On the midnight of January 6th, 2019, I received an email “Collaboration for videos from Europe” from Mattia. Ah, interesting! I thought. A response to my new year’s reflection email where I disclosed my dream to bring awareness to eczema patients worldwide a solution to end its suffering. But I also learnt Mattia’s struggle with eczema.

3 years later when I finally launched the WeDerm Instagram account (@WeDermHealth), after many years of delay (given I’m not a very visual person), a few days later I saw someone tag me in Italian.

We re-connected and were reminded of the 2019 email exchange and hence this post! Mattia was very kind to share his story (including photos) to inspire more people to take action and realize that an integrated care approach with emphasis on lifestyle medicine DOES WORK!

When we ended the catch up, Mattia told me he was on his way to scuba diving in Sicily for a short vacation. 

Do you realize the significance of this statement?

To go from an eczema patient with wounds all over the body, red, and oozing particularly on the face and neck where people can see, reluctant to touch water due to stings on open wounds – to someone who casually engages in water activities! 

This is a HUGE breakthrough, HUGE advancement in quality of life.

And that’s the biggest joy any eczema patient can attain. 

The Beginning of the End

Mattia grew up with cortisone steroids, had seen many dermatologists, and tried numerous creams. Like many patients including myself, enduring the disease for over 20 years had pounded us into a state of hopelessness for its cure and the resolution to ‘simply live with it.’ 

The most prestigious and credible professional - doctors - told us there is no way out - except to indulge in steroid creams for life. Why then, should we live in denial and believe there's a way out of the disease after all?

• But there’s always someone who sees things a little differently.
• In 100 people, there’s at least one person who still hasn't quite given up after decades.
• There’s always a turning point or pivotal experience that changes the game.

This is the story of Mattia in his own words:

In 2018, my eczema was so bad that I had to go on steroids for many days and they didn’t work anymore.

Hopeless, I decided to look for solutions around the world in ENGLISH and I found a video talking about nutrition and your blog.

And I said… f***! I don’t trust this bullsh**!

Then my mother entered my room with a book by Mark Hyman about functional medicine and I repeated: I don’t like this bullsh**!!!!

Then, desperate, I found a video of someone who healed following your protocol and I said I can do this.

Let’s give it a try.

Meanwhile I started to read Mark Hyman’s book and I found a fil-rouge (connection).

And I got passionate about the topic of nutrition and functional medicine and after 2 weeks my itch went away. 

In many moments I got worse but I knew that was part of the path because I watched many videos about people who healed with that approach, and that really gave me the courage to go on.

After 3 years, today I am healed.

Now I avoid only gluten and I pay attention not to exaggerate with all the rest. I have pretty much my life back. (More on Mattia’s full protocol later.)

Eczema Transformation Photos 

5 Insights I Learnt from Mattia’s Story

If you’re reading this, while going through the TSW journey, or contemplating on whether you should decrease medication use, or how to implement it, let this post be an inspiration for you. 

We do not provide medical advice and do not replace professional opinion. At the same time, increasingly we hear many of these stories (or anecdotes, if you like) that it will work. The choice is in your hands. Here are 5 insights I learnt from Mattia.

1. Treat the body inside out. 

Steroid creams are only as good as until they fail! Find and treat your root causes.

Our blog, among other nutrition blogs, and YouTube channels are a source of knowledge to treat eczema. But what is this knowledge exactly? 

Nutrition? Functional Medicine? Integrated Care?

I want to differentiate these commonly interchanged terms:

• Nutrition: The use of food or supplement-based interventions targeted for eczema: e.g., a low-chemical load diet, the avoidance of food allergens, use of probiotics. 
• Functional Medicine: An innovative approach to modern medicine to treat primarily chronic diseases using laboratory testing, lifestyle changes from diet to stress management. Pioneered in the United States and is partially standardized. (There are functional medicine certifications you can easily obtain by simply paying for it and easily passing the course).
• Integrated Care: An interdisciplinary approach to modern medicine that addresses root causes of diseases. More of a general idea to integrate multiple disciples to approach diseases, however this concept is discussed in the conventional medical literature and NOT the alternative medicine space that functional medicine primarily resides in.

Beginner eczema patients who read about nutrition online will eventually stumble upon functional medicine. Because a lot of what it says makes sense (especially for laypeople who are not scientifically trained): treating the root causes, personalized medicine, testing your various biomarkers to learn more about your body. However, functional medicine is also highly controversial and not widely accepted by conventional medicine.

Functional medicine gets certain things right but it is also a system with strong emphasis on expensive testing and supplementation where most critics would argue are costly and not ultimately necessary. I stress this point because most eczema ‘beginners’ fall in love with a new system that just seems to make sense, especially after having been told all the useless 'steroid is the only way out' information by conventional doctors for decades.

My point: getting rid of eczema is low-cost and can be achieved without a significant financial investment like testing and supplementation. Most supplements are not truly necessary and are oversold, which can be easily replenished from natural foods. Again, make your own analysis and decision. The core idea is to treat your root causes.

At WeDerm, we advocate integrated care using the acronym SEEDS+, being stress, exercise, environment, diet, sleep, plus social health.

2. Do your own research and connect the dots.

Can't trust one article's perspective? Why not study a few more articles, videos, or even books?

I’ve been saying this for years, and this will be forever true for as long as awareness is inadequate. Conventional medicine is the solution to many (acute) conditions. You can’t eat your way out of a surgical need, but you can eat your way out of (or at least significantly control) your diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases like eczema.

But it takes a mountain of evidence to replicate and demonstrate the success of integrated care for XYZ disease in medical literature. Because you just can’t easily conduct a human trial and test for an eczema-friendly lifestyle which is full of variables. It is extremely difficult to amass such evidence and deny the value of conventional medicine, or to claim that your family doctor is ineffective. Or even to topple the general idea that doctors are alway correct.

My point: you cannot use the frame of conventional medicine, or debate with conventionally trained medical professionals to prove your point that integrated care works to treat eczema. Also, the causes of eczema are highly weighed differently, e.g., a GP will emphasize your dysfunctional skin barrier and provide creams, but an integrated care approach wants equal attention for other aspects like diet and stress management.

Mattia was only able to see ‘medicine’ in a new light after reading numerous blogs, watching YouTube videos, learning from testimonials, having been brought a book by family, before finally realizing that conventional medicine may not always have the answers.

If you’re still early in the learning process, realize that conventional medicine will not be able to produce a good research paper to prove lifestyle changes help eczema. Your GP will also likely dismiss your steroid phobia or considerations for diet changes. 

You have to connect the dots and sort it out on your own.

3. Pick yourself up from a low point.

Only you can change the trajectory of your life with eczema.

Mattia had eczema for years since growing up but the cortisone creams eventually failed to work in 2018. He could have advanced his medications with stronger steroids or even immunosuppressants. 

But Mattia realized he can’t live like this forever, and that’s when all the internet browsing (more assuringly known as ‘research’) began. 

I know eczema patients in their 30s and 40s who have decided to co-exist with medications because the lifestyle that they can enjoy is valued more (e.g., the ability to consume more alcohol, neglect dietary allergens, and eat a variety of otherwise restricted foods). 

But I also know people who lived like that and used steroids to suppress their condition for decades until the body (from the effects of aging and a chronically suppressed immune system, probably) can no longer take it and CRASH. Crash in terms of full-blown severe eczema, all over the body, multiple hospitalizations, infected eczema, bedridden, inability to walk, work, and live. 

Don’t wait for your lowest point to come. 

You don’t know when your body will crash. It’s a big gamble to take and assume the body is strong enough to take those drugs for many years.

4. Experiment and find your own diet.

No eczema diet is the same and everyone’s management plan involves experimentation. There is usually an initial restrictive process with strict avoidance and dieting, and then a maintenance phase which brings items back gradually.

Mattia’s dietary journey in his own words:

I was very very strict at my diet for one year: 

• No gluten
• No dairy
• No legumes
• No solanaceae aka. nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes…) 
• No pro-histamine DAO suppressor foods (e.g., chocolate coffee, alcohol, nuts, pork, spinach, cereals)

1-2 years later I started re-introducing various foods back into my diet. 

Gluten is the only one I never really bring back! I know that is one of my principal causes of leaky gut, and maybe I am also very afraid to consume it because I know that a very small portion of it can create great damage. So I didn’t introduce it for 4 years now and never tested again except for once (someone told me “gluten free” when it was actually “vegan free”) and eventually I had a bad skin reaction which caused a very stressful week, but after a week of strict diet it went away. 

I also get red skin when I visit a sushi restaurant, probably the soy sauce which has gluten in it. But also the raw fish may not be the best in an Italian sushi restaurant, I guess…

For other foods I do not exclude them 100%: if I can choose what to eat I will usually avoid them (high chemical load foods). But sometimes I cheat and consume some higher chemical foods which I can tolerate: dairy, free-gluten cereals, beans, legumes, and also high histamine products like nuts, tomatoes, potatoes, tropic-fruits, chocolate, coffee, etc. 

If I consume too much of these foods, my skin tells me in her flaring language: “Mattia, that’s enough!”

Now I still pay attention to a healthy diet: 

• No sugar
• No packaged or processed food
• Good meat and vegetables
• Good balance between carbs, proteins and fibers

Finally on supplements, a functional medicine doctor told me to take supplements especially omega 3, Vitamin B, magnesium, and Vitamin D (I had a really strong deficiency in Vitamin D).

5. Move and breathe.

Treat the body but also your mind and spirit!

Although diet is a significant part of integrated care, it alone will not eradicate eczema. There are factors like stress, exercise, environment, diet, sleep, and social health that play a role in eczema management.

As underscored by Mattia: 

In this journey I was really helped by yoga (for moving the body) and meditation, for controlling  stress which I realized had a high impact. For meditation, Joe Dispenza’s work really helped me to feel positive emotions even when I had pain, and that’s very important to control cortisol and other bad enzymes and to produce some healthier ones in the body.

I also practiced the Wim-Hof method for six months during my recovery journey, and it probably contributed to my healing process.

Final Thoughts

I’m very grateful to have Mattia reach out and share his story. It’s all these anecdotes that active eczema patients read that give a sense of hope after years of suffering.

From the video call I had with Mattia, I also learnt that he wouldn’t have found my blog by searching atopic dermatitis (which is the prevalent term used in Italy). He found it by searching ‘eczema’. These two terms are interchangeable and make a huge difference in search results, and possibly whether someone stumbles upon an important recovery story. 

If you know someone who will benefit from this article, take a second and share it with them. Don’t let a terminology difference delay their recovery!