Red Skin Syndrome: Meet Heather Petersen

Christine and I go waaay back, if it weren’t for her I would never have met my wonderfully loving and supportive husband. We have been through a lot together over the years and both of us have shared the woes of our health. In fact it’s because of our health issues that we both have sought education in the our fields to investigate solutions.

We have mutual respect for one another’s experience and knowledge. So when Christine called me back in Mayish of 2011 after emailing her in tears that I could not deal with my health for another day, she immediately convinced me to make a change. At her suggestion I embarked in a series of water fasts and around 4 months of vegan life.

After my first 3-day water fast, my cysts and fibroids disappeared, the ringing in my ears went away and my energy level went up. In fact I slept better and felt more emotionally stable in general, probably because of the reduced inflammation and hormone balancing. I have since stayed vegetarian, after introducing dairy and eggs into my diet during September 2011.

Diet can not always fix every problem though, as the last year and a half of my life has proven.

Still fighting skin afflictions that rendered me bed ridden at times coupled with an unexplainable variety of symptoms continued to plague me. Finally in April 2012 I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease (as we traced it back to 2001ish). But the icing on the cake came in June 2012, when I finally found the answer to all my skin issue – I had been diagnose with Red Skin Syndrome due to 36 years of topical, oral and injections of steroids for my supposed “eczema”. (I won’t bore you with details, you can read about my journey at www.eczemancipated.com.) I became bed ridden in May 2012 from the Lyme treatment and stayed bed ridden through pretty much September/October 2012 while dealing with the steroid withdrawals.

Pheeoo, talk about long-winded. Ok, my point…

Finally (though still in the throws of Red Skin Syndrome recovery) the last year’s 16-weeks course of heavy antibiotics to rid the Lyme, more antibiotics and antivirals to stop the skin infections, a variety of prescriptions and herbs to deal with pain, insomnia, itching and all kinds of things – my body is screaming to be cleaned out and balanced.

I know she’s let the cat out of the bag, but here’s what’s up…

For 30 days, starting February 28, 2013, I will be guest blogging here about my Raw Vegan experience, working with Christine, recipes I’ve borrowed from justglowingwithhealth.com, my daily ups and downs and general commentary.

Join me in raising awareness for Red Skin Syndrome (www.itsan.org) and I invite you to go  30 days Raw Vegan with me to journey with Christine to “Glowing Health”.

Disclaimer: If you’re considering a water fast make sure to first consult your health practitioner

Heather Petersen