hormones

The first to blame - hormones need balancing, especially if you experience fluctuations with your skin problems during your cycle, and if you have been helped by the Pill in the past. Stress is also a major factor to consider here, as it is our stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline) that can wreak havoc on our reproductive hormones (like estrogen, testosterone and progesterone), and often it is the cascade effect of stress that is causing more damage and imbalance than reproductive hormones alone.

Liver & elimination

The skin is one of our largest eliminatory organs. Other elimination organs include the liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph and bowels. If elimination and detoxification is sluggish or compromised, then the skin can suffer. Whether it’s acne or eczema, detoxification and elimination capacity needs to be optimal for healthy skin.

skin health

What makes us so unique in our approach is the ability to blend the internal and external healing work simultaneously. Addressing the health of the skin is vital in being able to encourage fast healing, reduce inflammation and infection, and minimise scarring. We take into account the health of the skin, the quality of the sebum (skin oil), and skin barrier function for optimal results, as quickly as possible.

gut health & microbiome

The skin and gut are intrinsically connected via the gut-skin axis, and the bacteria (microbiome) which inhabit the gut have a direct influence on immune function and skin health. Whether it be acne or eczema that troubles you, healing the gut lining is imperative in reducing inflammatory processes within the body that affect the skin. Restoring a healthy microbiome is vital in balancing and calming immune system function, which is a key treatment aim in treating eczema in particular. The catch-22 is that antibiotic use greatly affects the gut and microbiome, so often there is work to do in restoring damage done by the mainstream approaches to acne and eczema. Identifying any food sensitivities is also a valuable part of the treatment process in reducing inflammation in both acne and eczema. After all, it is our food that encourages diversity and nourishment of a healthy microbiome, so much attention is paid to optimising the diet.

toxicity

We are exposed to toxicity through many forms; the food we eat, environments we live in, air we breathe and chemicals we expose ourselves to. There are some factors of toxin exposure that we don’t have much control over (like where we live, what we do for work) and there are factors that we do have control over (what we eat, how we store our food, what products we use, etc.). We focus on your toxin exposure as this has a massive influence on your hormones and elimination pathways. Environmental toxins like micro-plastics act like hormones in our bodies (called xeno-estrogens), but aren’t picked up on in blood tests. This can be why you have symptoms of estrogen dominance without the blood tests to prove it. Hence why we pay attention to all the ways you might be exposed to toxicity, so that we can reduce factors that are in our control.