I'v been on a supplement made by Dr Murad which includes all of these & I've really, really noticed a difference. I have only been on this for about 5 weeks.

This is a great post. I see that it's an older post, but I just now found it. I only recently found out what this condition that I've had my whole life is called. I'm printing out this information to take to my doctors. I am fortunate that my conventional doctor will work to integrate with my naturopath. I doubt the information will win my nephrologist over to naturopathic and nutritional medicine, but I take his conventional attitude with a grain of salt, since most conventional doctors are like. No matter, since my primary care doctor is more open-minded.

I have been taking this mix for some time but it didn't have any effect on my KP. Life Extension Mix Tabs, 315 Tablets

Do you still think it has something to do with a defiency in vitamins?

Well, I figure it doesn't hurt to investigate this, because I have other indications in my health status to consider that everything else is diet and nutritionally based. I figured that if everything else improved, and I felt better but still have the bumps, I can live with that. The information about nutritional supplements is not unsound for overall health, and I am going to be asking my doctor about some blood tests that check for malabsorption and deficiencies, since I was severely deficient in two particular areas in the past. The trouble is, they didn't check thoroughly for the other deficiencies that I know that should've been looked at. Vitamin D never would've been checked if I didn't have a conventional doctor willing to integrate with the natural medicine and order the blood tests that the naturopath had asked for. The vitamin D was so severely low that it scared the conventional doctor. A couple of other things were low, too.

The same nutritional information I was reading here and the Candidas connection are all the same information that goes in line with everything else I'm dealing with. So, in my case, there is no harm in trying to take the right nutritional supplements for my body. But, I'm not an idiot. I know that there is such a thing as vitamin A toxicity. And, some things my nephrologist doesn't want me to take with the kidney issues.

I'm hoping that the right stuff will make me feel better first and foremost, and I'm hoping that my KP will improve, too. If it doesn't, then--Oh, well. At least the effort is being made and I'm on the right track for the rest of my health issues.

About 3-4 months ago I asked my doctor to take a blood test and check if everything is okay and he told my that I am healthy, so at least for me it probably doesn't have anything to do with mal nutrition.

Oh, I am so glad you're not having other health issues. That's terrific news.

Do you mean he did the blood test? or did he just tell you you're healthy and wouldn't do the blood test?

Even on top of that, someone would have looked at me 2 years ago and said, "yeah, you're basically healthy" yet I have been able to improve several annoying health problems through lifestyle changes. The issues, while they weren't life threatening, certainly affected the Quality of my life. I consider the medical community (at least mine locally) to be best for things like emergency surgery and over-prescribing anti-biotics and removing pre-melanoma skin cells. But as far as wholistic quality of life stuff, they are not trained or paid to look at patients that way.

There's a difference between malnutrition and still not having quite enough of nutrients for optimal health. Many celiacs are walking around un-diagnosed because their symptoms are not bad enough to debilitate them and they even squeak by with just enough nutrients to live but can have a much reduced quality of life due to lesser symptoms.

anyway, I'm not saying the Dr's wrong per se, but some of them dismiss KP as something minor - which it can be - but it can also be the tip of an iceberg of larger health issues.

- bd

I agreee with you 100%, because I'm trying to fix nutritional issues associated with Celiac and other issues. Much of the information that Rachel18 had already mentioned was the same kind of information I have learned about issues like Celiac, which I have, too. It sounds like you knew what I was talking about when I wrote my post. So much of this information that Rachel expounded upon is associated with information about Celiac and other issues. So, in order to know where to start with it, I just want my doctor to take all the right blood tests for malnutrition. Like I already said before, if my naturopath hadn't ordered the blood tests to test vitamin D, I wouldn't have learned that I was severely deficient in that. I agree with you about conventional doctors actually, but they do have their place. I'm fortunate that my conventional doctor will integrate with my naturopathic doctor.

You do sound fortunate in that way, how nice! and I agree absolutely that conventional doctors have their place and some of them exceed expectations as to wholistic concerns. and conventional surgery has saved my life twice so I'm totally cool with the excellent surgeons there are these days, you know, compared to a few hundred years ago.

I was responding to jimmieandersen in my last post in case there was any confusion. It was not clear to me whether his Dr. did do a blood test or not. - bd

I thought you might be responding to jimmieandersen, but I know this is a public forum, too. Oh, by the way, my doctor did order the blood tests that I mentioned. I forgot to have her check the LDL and HDL. The results are probably still better than last time. Either way, I will still be using the fish oil and the red yeast rice regardless, because that's a lifetime thing. Healthy people without cholesterol issues can and should take the fish oil, because it's a great preventative. My bottle of red yeast rice says they're 600 mg each and to use it twice a day, but the naturopath said to use just 600 mg a day, so I've been taking them once a day. I found an inexpensive way to get the stuff, because it can be fairly expensive otherwise, even at the discount supplement store. I get mine at swansonvitamins.com. Anyway, I was down to normal cholesterol and only needed to reverse the HDL and the LDL, which is a wonderful reversal in my case and I was able to avoid pharmaceuticals.

She looked at my KPA, which is irritated really bad right now. I've never had it this irritated before. She prescribed the Ammonium Lactate Lotion. This stuff is going to be difficult to use, because it has fragrance in it and I have MCS as well as KP. So, I called the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist if they have a prescription formula that doesn't have fragrance in it. They don't. I found the manufacturer's website, which has a way to contact them through email to ask them about it. It seems strange that something meant for irritated skin would have added fragrances in it, no matter how light and low on the list of ingredients it is.

On a different forum I saw that someone had asked a question about allergy to vitamin B complex, which intrigued me, because I already know that this is one formulation I can't take and is one reason mult-vitamins upset my stomach. There was a doctor who responded to that and mentioned that the two types of vitamin B that people are usually allergic to are B3 and B6. This, I did not know, and this was very important to me, because I had been taking vitamin B6 for a little while. Right around the time I noticed this systemic rash in my body, which isn't just the irritation in my KP is right around the time I had started taking the vitamin B6. I stopped taking it right away when I read that information on the other forum. That was good information to know. I noticed the migrating neurapathy has calmed down and the overall itching in other places of my body that don't have KP has calmed down. I have sensitive skin, and any time the KP gets irritated, it takes longer to calm down than any other skin irritation does. I also noticed after I stopped using the B6 that something else stopped happening so frequently, too. I'm not getting so many mouth blisters. I knew they were an allergy to something, but I didn't know what. It took a while for it to dawn on me that the B6 was the one thing that had been different all this time. They're better now, too.

The other nutritional information that Rachel18 had mentioned is stuff that I'm still investigating to see which amounts of these things are right for my body. I have to wait for the results of the blood tests before I proceed. I am really glad I have an integrative doctor willing to take these blood tests. This is the only way I can get my insurance to pay for the blood tests, too. She doesn't think that it's unsound to test these at all, especially after we discovered how vitamin D deficient my body was when we tested it the first time. So, that's being checked, too. It's probably still low, but hopefully not as low as it was the last time. What it was the last time was so low that it scared my conventional doctor. This is a case where it is actually wise to go ahead and take the megadose vitamin D once a week, along with the daily natural vitamin D, because it was so low. And, I'm not allergic to the pharmaceutical formula of vitamin D, which is good news for me.

If my naturopath hadn't have asked for the vitamin D test the first time, it wouldn't have gotten done. I didn't know it was necessary myself. And, I'm one of those people who has a hard time spending any time in the sun, because I burn so easily. I say this, because sun exposure is the best way to get vitamin D. I find it interesting how many people have reported that sun exposure also improves the condition of KP, too. I saw on the bottle of the Ammonium Lactate not to go in the sun or in artificial sun while using this lotion. No danger of that this time of the year. I obviously don't use tanning beds myself. Mercola.com has a wealth of information about vitamin D for anyone interested in finding out more. He has useful information on a lot of other issues, too. But, vitamin D information is critical for every person out there, because there is a vitamin D deficiency epidemic in this country and across much of the world. The RDA of vitamin D is too low. Even my conventional doctor recognizes this.

I'm taking more than the RDA of chelated iron, too, under doctors directions, because I wasn't able to take either kind of the prescription iron. This isn't something that healthy people should do. People with healthy levels of iron should only take the RDA, if they're going to take iron to keep their levels up. The RDA is not more than 35 mg per day.

When I get the blood test results back, I'll take the information back to my naturopath, like I did the last time. Then, I'll see what she says to do next.

I feel it is important to get proper guidance in this area, because one can either not take enough of something as important as vitamin D, or take too much of something else and end up being sick with toxicity. Although, not too likely for me right now as low as my vitamin D was, one can still get vitamin D toxicity and not know it. So, this should be tested regularly for anyone supplementing with vitamin D. There was an article that would put peoples' minds at ease of the liklihood of vitamin D toxicity on the mercola.com website, though. One of his most recent articles on vitamin D mentioned how much people should take, especially during the winter, without having to worry about toxicity. It should still be checked about every 6 months just to make sure that it's at a good level.

This kind of information is important whether it directly applies to KP or not.

And, regardless if you feel strongly that KP is only a genetic issue that we have to live with or is something that we can do something about or at least lessen its severity, the arguments that some people made that sounded like they were attacking Rachel18 were just inappropriate. Whether the KP is cleared up with this kind of sound nutritional advice or not shouldn't be something to argue about, because sound nutritional advice can still only help one get healthier or stay healthy if one is already healthy. And, if you read mercola.com long enough, you'll realize that most of the RDA information about daily nutritional supplements is actually the bare minimum of what a person should take--not the maximum. This is one reason why we need proper guidance from someone who is trained. Rachel18 is going for her degree to practice naturopathic medicine, so I know she knows what she is talking about. She is doing her research and doing more, too. No doubt by now she is doing an internship somewhere, as she has probably already graduated to that point.

Hi,
Just a quick question... I remember reading a thread were a guy got a blood test or something and it said that he was healthy and his vitamin levels were fine, but he still had kp. So... whats up with that? If he doesn't have a vitamin deficiency why does he have kp, assuming that the vitamin deficiency is the reason for kp? Any thoughts? I was wondering about this because lately ive been wanting to try this but I don't want to go buy all these vitamins and then have them not work. Thanks.

__________________

Well, the information that I've been reading supports that it is definitely genetic. I know that I inherited mine from my mother, eventhough she never talked about it. I doubt that she even knows the name of it. Still, the information about supplements is still sound advice from a health and nutritional standpoint. For me, it definitely applies to take a certain number of supplements. I am getting sound advice from both my conventional and my naturopathic doctors. Even the nephrologist agrees about the amount of iron that I should be taking. I know where you can get some very good information about nutritional supplements that will give you the best answer. The website is called mercola.com. This is the last name of the naturopathic doctor pracicing in Chicago. He has a wealth of information and a newsletter that you can subscribe to, if you wish. However, you don't have to be a subscriber to read the information he has on his website. He has some of his own formulas, but don't worry, that's not his main goal. I have never bought any of his products. The information I talked about with the vitamin D already really does apply to everyone, regardless of the KP issue or not. If the supplementations work for that will be wonderful, but since I'm taking them for my health anyway, I'm not going to stress out over whether or not it works. I think you'll find the information on mercola.com to be very helpful for nutritional supplements in general. I haven't ever seen any information about KP specifically, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been mentioned. I did only recently find out the name of this skin condition that I've had my whole life. I do think that the right supplements for you individually is the best for your overall health, but I don't know enough about KP to know what supplements work best. I think taking the supplements with your health being your primary motivation for taking them should be your main priority. If the supplements work for the KP, all the better. All people should be using fish oil to maintain healthy cholesterol and brain function, and all people should maintain a healthy vitamin D level. Mercola.com has excellent information on a wide range of issues. I think you'll be glad you checked it out.

Hope,

As there are probably many causes of KP, being deficient in a particular nutrient may just be one cause. It is also theorized that mites, hormones, genes, candida, food allergies, and filigrin mutations may all be possible causes. If there was only one cause, KP would be easy to cure.

Kitty Mom and I agree that supplements are a good idea. But I think the best way to get vitamins and minerals is to eat an excellent, varied diet. That said, I take supplements and try to keep my diet extra healthy.

Vitamin A and omega 3 particularly help skin health.

kebod