Beauty is Only Skin Deep

This is a strong message that an individual’s character is what really makes one beautiful. How a person handles the challenges that life throws at them defines the type of person that they are. I often say how through floxing I’ve met a group of the most courageous, kindest, and strongest people I’ve ever met. They fight through pain with admirable strength, and find humor in dealing with illness. They are truly the most beautiful people I know.

There’s another side to the above statement I want to discuss and that is that our exterior appearance is a reflection of our internal health. Our skin is our largest organ and its primary function is protection but it can also tell us a lot about our internal health that we can’t otherwise see. For instance if your skin is very dry chances are your cells in your body are also. I know when my skin was extremely dry I was drinking a lot of water and yet always felt a bit dehydrated. I knew my cells were having an issue taking up fluid and this was reflected in my skin’s appearance. During this time my eyes watered a lot (a sign of dry eyes) and my throat was raspy and felt dry too. A very common side affect of FQT. What helped me more than drinking water was eating foods with high water content such as fruits and vegetables. I want to clarify that I’m not a medical professional or a nutritionist and I have no background or education in these fields. I’m just a woman who has suffered from FQAD for over 9 years who has tried numerous different things to get better. What I found which many floxies know already is that eating as organic as possible, eating foods in their natural forms (not processed), avoiding GMO’s (especially corn and soy products), avoiding sugar and unhealthy fats (corn, canola, margarine, etc) has helped me a great deal.

Another issue I noticed with my skin is that my body hair fell out. I no longer needed to shave my legs and the peach fuzz on my arms, fingers, toes and face disappeared. This too was an indication that my skin wasn’t healthy and that something was wrong internally. Other signs were the loss of the pads on my fingers so that when gripping something I could feel the bones in my hands. My legs also went from looking young for my age with no cellulite to turning into lumpy messes of cellulite seemingly overnight from collagen degeneration. Our nails can be another indicator of our internal health. Things to consider are their strength are they brittle and do they have lines, ridges, white spots or are they yellowed or have other discoloration. What I want to point out here is that if there are changes to your toenails or fingernails then my suggestion is that you look it up on the internet as these too can be signs of changes in our internal health.

The good news is that I turned this around and you can too by paying attention to what your body is telling you and taking the necessary steps to improve your health. By giving your body what it needs nutritionally it can repair itself. We are so fortunate to live at a time when we have a wealth of information at our fingertips. My suggestion is to put that to work for you and do your own research to determine the underlying cause of these changes. As always when doing your research trust your gut instincts when combing through the information available. And remember while beauty is only skin deep our external appearance can be an indicator of our internal health. A window if you will into what’s going on inside our bodies. Use this knowledge to your advantage and be aware of what your body and its appearance are telling you.

Yours in Health,

Betsy