My background was in printing, typesetting at first and the graduating to printing on the lithographic offset presses. There were a lot of chemicals and inks in the process of developing printing plates and getting them on the machine and doing the make ready. We are all told about wearing protective equipment in these environments but we all think that this is codswallop. Well it is only when you realise in your later years that these things that you did not do are now the cause of your sleepless nights. Yes sleepless nights, those nights when you are awake with your hands and other parts of your body itching and your scratching the skin off them down to the bone to get relief. Oh the thoughts of it!

Well I suffered for many years as did my late mother with this horrible skin disorder. Fortunately for me, I am a person who looks beyond the pills and the potions. My first port of call when I could no longer take the pain was to the Skin Specialist in the Consulting rooms. A nice woman! She talked to me for 1 hour charged me the equivalent of ?150 euro for the privelige and then gave me a prescription for another ?150, and suggested that I wear cotton gloves when I go to bed. NEXT!

Then one day I happened to be on my printing press when I was doing some work for a client and she suggested that I go an visit a herbalist, after all she knew a person who had what looked like the same disorder as I had and she was cured. Worth a try I thought and I made an appointment. Appointment fee ?100 and ?75.00 for medication. Took the medication for a while and found that I was getting results. After 3-5 visits I felt that I was totally cured.

This was a result. I rang my colleague and I thanked her for her recommendation. I seemed to be doing really well for the next couple of years. Then I had another outbreak. I went back to the herbalist and got the same medication again. Unfortunately it seemed to take longer to take effect and seemed like the infection like a flu was becoming immune to his tonics and hand washes.

I thought well it is easing the itching but unfortunately I was not getting the same results as I did the first time. Then I got an ideal that maybe it is a case of dividing and conquering. So I started to take mental notes of what I was eating. At this stage I would have been doing my regular walking and eating of fruit routines. Banana in the morning with breakfast, Apple and orange at lunchtime with sandwiches. Some melon at tea time after dinner. Once or twice a week I would make a real healthy smoothie, with lots of different fruits including Apples, Oranges, Pears, Strawberries, Kiwi Fruit, Pineapple etc. I would drink my smoothie and think how healthy am I!!! But I did notice that a day or so after my smoothies especially I would get a fierce attack in between the fingers and under the feet of the dermatitis.

So then I started to make the smoothies only once a week, and I decided to omit one of the fruits each time I make one. My studies showed that the one fruit that really made me break out in the dermatitis rash was the Pineapple, this was further brought home to me when we would order a Pizza for a Saturday night in and my daughter liked pineapple. Well sure as hell if I ate pizza with pineapple on I would break out within 24-36 hours later. I am not saying that pineapple was the only problem but it was part of the problem, certain types of apple also gave me a milder outbreak but the pineapple was worst. So now once I avoid pineapples and some varieties of apples and pears, my skin is beautiful on my hands and feet no more ugly scabs or burnt looking skin. I also found out lately that eating some varieties of pickled onion can also give you a minor outbreak (well me anyway). So to all you sufferers of this dreaded disease out there in the world.

Consultants and Doctors are good, but at the end of the day they can only make a diagnosis on what they know and were thought! Sometimes you have to make the effort to divide and conqueror your illness/allergy by taking note of what you are eating. After all they say "you are what you eat". Thanks for reading and I hope this is useful to anybody out there.

By FabVin