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Dietary changes for lichen sclerosis
Has anyone had any luck with dietary changes for lichen sclerosis? (blood sugar management, less sugar, intermittent fasting, no dairy, etc) Ironically I have also found that possibly increased blood flow to the area (through bike riding) has seemed to decrease symptoms dramatically.
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Well, not necessarily lichen sclerosus in particular... but, all my skin and vulvar symptoms are much much much better now that I've actually stopped eating foods that (it turns out) give me GI distress. Full transparency: I was not a big believer in how much overall inflammation the gut could contribute to the body - my younger sister had been telling me for (oh) 15 years I should cut out dairy and gluten and I pooh-poohed her suggestion.
It started with almonds - for almost 20 years almond milk gave me diarrhea, so I pretty consistently avoided almond milk. But I ate almond because, well... uh, almonds didn't give me diarrhea. Look, I know, there wasn't logic there. I finally realized it was that in the blended up form the almond protein just hit my system fast enough to give me diarrhea, but if I had to chew them myself and let my stomach and intestines slowly digest them, then the immune reaction was much slower. I got IgE tested because I thought I had mouth burning a couple times, but it was just my general mouth burning. My allergist reminded me that non-IgE food intolerance/allergies are totally a thing and to, uh, STOP eating almonds altogether because clearly my immune system was reacting.
Next, I tried dairy. I'm lactose intolerant so I tried lactose free dairy after cutting out all dairy for a few weeks. I'll go with YES, POSITIVE on that test. 30 minutes to an hour after eating a nice big dose of lactose free yogurt I could get a big flare of itchy skin lesions. I could also induce diarrhea if I ate a big bag of muddy buddy rice chex covered in whey protein, or if I drank enough non-dairy coffee creamer (which is made with casein protein). So, that's an easy one for you - if you, like most of my lactose intolerant half of the family ALSO gets diarrhea from non-dairy Coffee Mate... you probably have an immune reaction to the dairy protein casein too and need to hold off on dairy altogether.
Next, gluten - OK, this is just getting boring. Bloating, skin itching. Finally, and this one I wasn't testing for... I was just eating some seasonal and delicious Trader Joe's mini meringues and had a reaction (yes, diarrhea) and did that 2 days in a row. Egg white protein.
After cutting all the egg from my diet - my skin has been GREAT. I can't remember the last time I felt like I needed to use vulvar steroids (a week? 2 weeks?). Do I hate avoiding dairy, gluten, almonds, and now eggs? So much. I hate it. But my gut and my skin are way better.