Fungal and Other Skin Infections

Here’s an important fact: the skin has friendly bacteria just like the gut! Like in the gut, one of the many functions of the skin’s microbiome is to prevent infections.  This is important because the skin is teeming with all kinds of microorganisms, and the friendly bacteria on our skin protects us from these potentially harmful pathogens.

The other function of the skin, besides providing us with a protective barrier to the outside world, is to eliminate toxins all day.  Some of these toxins are hot in nature, due to the toxins that develop from the faulty digestion of food (known as ama visha in Ayurveda) or due to the body dumping pharmaceuticals and other environmental toxins (known as gar visha).  These very hot toxins can burn the friendly bacteria on the skin, allowing infection to grow.

Doctors prescribe antibiotics both orally and externally on the skin. But here’s a better treatment plan:

1. Fix the patient’s digestion so no toxins are formed from the food
2. Direct the toxins away from the skin and into the urine
3. Cut out as many prescription drugs as your doctor will allow you
4. Purify the liver and blood using Cooling herbs so as not to heat the blood further
5. Stop the reactivity of the toxins coming through the skin
6. Prebiotic and probiotic creams for the skin, an amazing treatment developed by my teacher, Vaidya Mishra, a dermatologist

Regrowing the friendly bacteria on the skin will kill the infection without depleting more friendly bacteria, making the condition worse in the long run, like antibiotics can do.  Remember, antibiotics were to the 20th century as probiotics are to the 21st century. As we continue to shift the paradigm of modern medicine’s approach to treating the body, we are seeing this deeper understanding of how to kill infections without disturbing the body’s delicate immune system.  Rather, we are supporting its functions. This will prevent the tendency of recurring infections, which happens once the friendly bacteria are destroyed (as in recurrent yeast, SIBO, UTI’s, H. Pylori and HPV, to name a few).