Atopic dermatitis isn't about 'this is bad.' Why the same food affects you differently depending on the day

For example, there are days when I eat chocolate and nothing happens, and days when I wake up in the middle of the night scratching. I'm eating the same amount, from the same container in the refrigerator, in the same way.Yet, only my body's reaction is different. I have always found this mysterious.

I have had atopic dermatitis for twenty years, and for a long time,I tried to manage my body using a list of 'dos and don'ts,' deciding what was 'good' and what was 'bad' if I ate it. I would list food names in my smartphone memo and cross off a 'culprit' every time I got itchy. But every time I encountered something that was 'different depending on the day' like chocolate, the list I had worked so hard to create would fall apart. Things that were okay yesterday became off-limits today, and eventually, I didn't know what the right answer was. That feeling of staring at a list and not finding an answer. I think there are quite a lot of people who are stuck in the same place. I think.

What I arrived at after twenty years was a way of thinking completely different from this 'do or don't' approach.It is the perspective of 'total load.' If you visualize it, it looks like this.

Think of your body as a 'bathtub'

Please think of your body as a single bathtub. Chocolate is just a part of the water pouring into that tub.

It's not just chocolate that is pouring water in. Other things you ate that day, the clothes you wore, the detergent or towels you used—those things are all flowing into the bathtub together.There are roughly two faucets carrying the load: things that enter through your mouth and things that enter through your skin.

On the other hand, there is a drain at the bottom of the bathtub that removes the water.This is your body's processing capacity. Your intestines and liver clearing out unnecessary substances, repairing damaged skin, and recovering through sleep. This is how the poured water is reduced.

And, the moment the water level exceeds a certain line and overflows, it turns into itching or eczema. This overflow line is the 'threshold.'

Once you get this far, the mystery of the chocolate from earlier is solved. On days when you sleep well and feel good, the drainage is working properly and the water level is low, so even if some chocolate enters, it won't overflow. But on days when you are sleep-deprived, have been eating out, and the water level is already high from other loads, that same chocolate becomes the 'final push that causes the overflow.' The chocolate wasn't 'OK' or 'NG'; it was determined by the total for that day. The culprit wasn't the chocolate; it was the water level.

There are two things to do: narrow the faucets and widen the drain

Therefore, there are broadly two things to do.Either narrow the faucets or widen the drain. One or both of these. Instead of deciding in black and white one by one, 'I can eat this, I can't eat that,' you keep the combined faucet flow within a range that the drain can keep up with. In my case, having only this to think about has taken a lot of weight off my shoulders.

Since I gained this perspective, I stopped bracing myself before eating chocolate.Before I eat, I just think, 'Is my water level high or low today?' On days when it seems high, I hold back a little, and on days when it's low, I eat without worrying. Not having to hunt for culprits every time I eat might be the part that has made things easiest.

How to specifically narrow the faucets (what the sources of the fire are) and how to widen the drain (how to regulate sleep and the intestines) are long enough to be individual articles. The story about faucets = food fire sources is here, and the story about drainage = recovery power is summarized in Atopic dermatitis is determined by the 'night'.

I think there are quite a few people who have experienced 'foods that appear on some days and not others.' That is not because your records were poor, nor because your self-management was lax.You were just trying to measure something that cannot be measured by 'dos and don'ts' using 'dos and don'ts.'

The bathtub model is just a 'map.'The main text summarizes how to actually narrow the faucets (the order and intervals from subtraction to reintroduction), how to widen the drain (how to increase sleep and recovery power), and where moisturizing and medication work in the bathtub, all in the order I tried over twenty years. For those who don't know where to start, I think reading from here is the shortcut.

→ Until you stop being pushed around by atopic dermatitis (Main content, paid)

If you want to read a little more for free: The first step to measuring the water level starts with keeping records → The cause of atopic dermatitis can be found through 'food logs'