Eczema, psoriasis, hives, dermatitis, rosacea… have you ever dealt with a chronic skin rash? If yes, I know your misery. And so does this week’s healthHackers episode expert guest - more so than most. 

As a functional clinical nutritionist specializing in chronic rashes (and who’s suffered with her own painful skin issues), Jennifer Fugo is the go-to practitioner for her clients who are trying to figure out what’s underlying their rashes, plus any accompanying symptoms, like brain fog, chronic fatigue, autoimmunity and gut health issues.

It was Jennifer’s own experience of dealing painful eczema on one of her hands that inspired her to help others find the root causes of their chronic rashes. 

“I almost threw in the towel and said, I can't do this. I didn't want to meet with people anymore. I couldn't shake people's hands, I couldn't go to the gym. I would wake up in the middle of the night, I’d been scratching myself and my hands were bloody.

“It was just very, very miserable,” she told me. 

Using a protocol she developed herself, Jennifer was able to get rid of her eczema, but wanted others to know that there’s more you can investigate beyond antibiotics, steroids or immunosuppressants.

“It’s sad that in this day and age there is legitimate research that demonstrates connections between the skin and the gut, the skin and the liver, and all these different things. And it's just not making its way down. 

“So I wanted to share that and that was the inspiration.” 

Jennifer founded Skinterrupt - an online hub of information covering a variety of difficult skin conditions, and the host of the Healthy Skin Show podcast. She is also a member of the American Nutrition Association, an advisor for the Nutritional Aesthetics Alliance, and authored the book ‘The Savvy Gluten-Free Shopper: How to Eat Healthy without Breaking the Bank.’

“The skin is almost like a check engine light. It's saying, ‘Hey, something is going wrong’,” she told me.

According to Jennifer, there are 16 primary reasons a person has a chronic skin rash. But you won’t have them all at the same time.

“You have a combo, usually somewhere between three to five, maybe six. That's why what worked for, say, Ashley, is not going to work for John. And that's why people get frustrated,” she said.

Hear Jennifer outline those 16 hidden causes in healthHackers episode 49 - video and podcast.

I asked Jennifer if there was one thing she could tell all rash sufferers NOT to do.

“Don't go on a crazy elimination diet and keep taking more and more foods out,” she told me.

“Before you know it, you're on five foods and you're afraid or you can't reintroduce foods because you seem to react. That's a really serious place to be in because you end up nutritionally deficient and that actually will make your skin issues worse.”

Some diets can be used as clues, she explained. For example, “If you take out animal foods, you can go vegan and all of a sudden you feel better and you see an improvement,” she said. This can indicate “you probably have low stomach acid”.

Speaking of her clients who are following an all-meat carnivore diet, she said:

“The lab work and the store panels that I have seen are some of the most messed-up panels from those individuals,” adding, “I’m not anti Carnivore, but I think we need a lot more research to understand what happens to the body with that type of diet.”

Jennifer is not opposed to dietary modifications. She advocates reducing junk food, added sugars and inflammatory oils, and acknowledged that food can be a rash trigger if you have a history of pollen allergies and potential for cross-reactivity or oral allergy syndrome.

Elimination diets though, she believes, have become over utilized and shouldn’t be used long-term.

“They're really a test. They’re for a period of time. And if you can't sustain those results or you don't see an improvement within 30 to 60 days at most, that means something else is going on and you really need to get some additional help.”

In cases where certain foods feel like direct triggers for your rashes and other symptoms, Jennifer said, it’s not necessarily the food that’s at fault.

“It's what happens to the food when it gets inside of you, which is much more difficult for us to quantify without data,” she added.

Jennifer helps her clients by looking at several factors, including potential liver detoxification issues and gut dysfunction.

“For example, an H. pylori infection where your stomach acid has become neutralized and you're no longer breaking down proteins appropriately - and now everything headed downstream is a train wreck,” she told me.

You might wonder, ‘But what about food sensitivities?’. Those, Jennifer told me, “are driven by issues between the gut function and the microbiome.”

The gut-skin connection has long been intriguing to me. Some of you might remember the article I wrote about my three-year chronic case of perioral dermatitis (and what I did to get rid of it). I updated it recently and added a quote from Jennifer in the piece too. You can read it here.

In the early days of suffering with that rash, I too, questioned whether the root of the cause was in something I was eating (along with a lot of other guesswork). For anyone pondering the same, Jennifer said:

“If you feel like you need to be on an elimination diet, then you need to ask yourself ‘What’s going on internally that's causing this dysfunctional relationship with food?’ - not continuing to take more and more out thinking, ‘Well, the next food that I take out will solve the problem’.”

“There are a lot of things to explore that are well beyond diet.”

~~~

Check out Jennifer’s website and Skinterrupt.

Follow her on Instagram.

Listen to her podcast.

🟥Common sense caution: Anything you hear or see within healthHackers content should not be considered personal or medical advice. You’ve all heard it before, so you know the score - always talk to your own health provider about your concerns.👌

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