This week marked 5 weeks steroid free and 4 weeks NMT.

One problem area I noticed after shaving my head totally skinhead last week was the back of my head. It was extremely angry and dry (see the pic). I did my best to keep it dry during the week, brush off dry flakes every morning, give it lots of sun and visualise healing. It showed a lot of improvement in just one week.

I did experience a small flare this week, mostly on my arms but it settled down after a few days. I thought it might be the beginning of the notorious “2nd month flare”, but it turned out to be mild.

It seems my whole torso has healed and looks pretty much normal. Maybe I’m just between flares, but for now it feels strong. My forehead is still the most stubborn area, but is progressing (slowly). I scratch it a lot every night, and there’s lots of blood on my pillow every morning, but it always heals back stronger. My body doesn’t hurt anymore so I can run everyday errands etc like normal now. I just wear a hat when I go out, this has been good for my sanity.

I’ve been conscious about the water limit but haven’t been obsessing about it. I usually do around 2,000ml per day including food (I’m 55kg). However, I have been obsessing about diet and exercise. In my opinion, diet and exercise are the two most important aspects of NMT, as NMT is a form of holistic treatment. If you keep your metabolism strong and feed yourself the right nutrients, the body will heal itself from the inside faster than any fancy cream or oil will. Nature is very clever.

I try to run every day to break a sweat, plus do lots of pushups and weights. Then I eat the healthiest foods possible.

I did lots of reading on nutrition this past few weeks to figure out what foods will give me all 27 essential nutrients, plus enough fats and protein. Short answer: I eat grass fed lamb and beef, salmon, pastured eggs, oats, liver, almonds, chia seeds, seaweed, cacao powder, plus any fruits high in vitamin C, mostly papaya, pineapple and kiwis (Vitamin C is a major building block in collagen production).

So far, these are the best foods I’ve been able to pinpoint. But if I find something better I will add it in. I must admit it has been expensive, but you can’t put a price on health. Also, I never cheat.

Supplements: Zinc, Cod Liver Oil, Vitamin D, Probiotics (100 billion CFU per day)

Every morning if the sun is out I go stand in the sun for at least 20 minutes. While I’m standing there I dry brush to remove dead skin flakes. I think sun is good for skin, especially since we’re not showering, but the main reason I do it is for Vitamin D. Vitamin D is another key building block in growth hormone, and almost everybody is deficient in Vitamin D. I also take a Vitamin D supplement, which is a good option if you don’t have much sunshine where you live.

I dry fasted for 2 days this week to try and boost growth hormone in the body. I think it helped a lot. As I mentioned in my earlier blog post this week, fasting kickstarts the processes of human growth hormone production and autophagy, both ideal for healing TSW.

Also, today I began experimenting with raw dairy, specifically raw milk. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenised. It is full of fats, probiotic bacterias and digestive enzymes (pasteurization means the milk is heat treated – it kills any bad bacteria and enzymes, but also kills all the good bacteria we need to digest the milk properly). I’m not sure how helpful it will be, but some elementary reading suggests it is extremely high in nutrients with almost perfect bioavailability, and excellent for skin health. It is hard to get it where I live, I need to drive around 45 minutes out of town to a local farm to get it. I drank about 500ml today and no problems, plus it is delicious. I will try to gauge this week whether it offers any skin benefits or not. Too early to tell.

So overall, not doing anything crazy. Just exercising, eating well, fasting, sunshine. Like most things, I feel like the more work you put into this fight, the more results you get. Like anything in life.