Chinese Remedies for Seborrheic Dermatitis
- Seborrheic dermatitis sometimes affects infants, and is referred to as "cradle cap." Although seborrheic dermatitis usually affects the head, it is sometimes seen on other parts of the body where hair is present. Symptoms include dry, yellow or scaly patches of skin, with surrounding areas often appearing reddened. Causes for dermatitis are not always easy to determine; heredity, diet, food allergies, chemical allergies and exposure to irritants can all play a role. Among the most common allergens are pollen, nickel (found in earrings, rings and zippers), latex, pet dander, fish, peanut, wheat, eggs and milk. Common irritants include dust, sand, detergents and soaps and chemicals such as chlorine.
- Traditional Chinese medicine is an alternative healing practice that often includes the use of herbs. Chinese medicine's approach to dermatitis focuses on correcting imbalances in the body, rather than just the skin, with the belief that skin improvement will follow. The three main components of Chinese medicine are elimination and detox, building health and maintaining health.
- You are probably already familiar with one herb that plays an important role in Chinese herbal therapy---the tea leaf. To treat your dermatitis, your practitioner may advise you to drink oolong tea, a specialty tea produced by partial oxidation of the tea leaf and prized for its anti-allergic and anti-oxidant effects. He may also prescribe rhizoma coptidis, the root of the coptis plant, for its anti-inflammatory qualities, and radix scutellariae, or skullcap root, believed to assist in the healing of sores. Other remedies he may recommend are flos lonicerae---or honeysuckle flower---for its detoxifying effect, fructus kochiae---or broom cypress fruit---to relieve itching, and cortex phellodendri---bark of the phellodendron tree---for its drying effect. He may also advise fructus forsythiae, or forsythia fruit, for its anti-infective qualities.
- There have been reports of liver and kidney failure in some patients on Chinese herbal regimens; if you do decide to try Chinese herbal therapy, make sure you are working with a qualified practitioner, and that you are regularly screened for toxicity. You should consult with your doctor before embarking on any herbal regimen, as these substances can interfere with prescription medicines. To learn about the side effects of herbs, visit the US Library of Medicine in the resource below.