OTB Skin Care and I have been making new friends on the World Wide Web and we invite you to catch us in some new places!

1. Please visit  SeniorWomen.com where  my guest article on Dermatologist’s Tips for Dry, Flaky Skin on the Scalp was featured.  I describe seborrheic dermatitis (aka dandruff) and give simple recommendations for over the counter treatments that you can  use to control this common problem
2. My guest blog post on 5 Tips To Control Exercise Acne was featured on DietsInReview.com.  Here I explain exercise acne and recommend treatments including OTB SKIN Back Acne Kit and Noble Zinc Soap among other remedies for this very stubborn form of acne that affects the face, neck, back and chest.
3. I was quoted on MagicSenses.com on the benefits of natural vegetable glycerin soaps for the care of dry, sensitive skin.
4. My guest article Dermatologist’s Advice For Your Chapped Hands was featured on Ezinearticles.com.
5. The OTB UV Ray Detecto Ring was featured as one of the 9 Hot Beauty Gadgets on SheKnows.com.  Our little UV sensing key ring beads caught their editor’s eye as a great tool for learning when age-causing UV sun rays threaten to damage your skin.

I found this spot on someone who came into my office for something else.…  He saved his life by letting me do a full skin exam.

He didn’t really want a full skin exam or think it was necessary.  He made the appointment because of some spots on his face that were bothering him and his family.  He’d had a lot of sun exposure over the years and I think his primary physician may have also said that at he should see a dermatologist.  My rule of thumb is that I STRONGLY encourage every fair skinned person over 40 who has lived in the sun belt to have a full skin exam.  Many patients decline.  This gentleman didn’t and his decision saved his life.

This melanoma was on his thigh.  In spite of having a large diameter, the melanoma was not invading into the deeper layers of his skin.  We removed it and he should be fine.  Statistically, it’s unlikely to come back….. Full skin exams save lives.

Yesterday I removed another early melanoma that I found on the back of a different patient.  This woman came in especially for a full skin exam because she had a family member who had had a melanoma.  My patient had questions about some of her moles but couldn’t see the subtle little mole on her back that caught my attention.  It was small and light brown, but didn’t match her other moles.  She wisely agreed to have me remove it for testing, which showed an early melanoma.  Like the gentleman above, we caught it early and statistically she should be fine.  Because this mole was on her back, she would not have been able to notice it until it had grown quite large, and thus more invasive.  This patient saved her life by requesting a full skin exam.

The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends that everyone have their doctor examine their skin every year.  People at higher risk for skin cancer should seek out a physician who’s really good at skin cancer detection like a dermatologist or a primary care physician who is good at doing skin exams.  It doesn’t matter what your ethnicity is or how dark your skin is naturally.  Every skin type can get skin cancer.

In addition, everyone should do self skin exams on a monthly basis.  The Skin Cancer Foundation has guidelines for self skin exams.

People are often shy and decline full skin exams, even in the dermatologist’s office.  Don’t be.  Do your monthly skin exams.  Have an annual exam.  Ask your doctor about your level of risk for skin cancer.  Get a plan to catch skin cancer early.

Need motivation? Read the Skin Cancer’s Statistics on skin cancer-their compelling!

See our full Aesthetician Services Menu to pick your service!

Get ready for spring sandals now!

For many of us, the rough, thick skin on our heels  looks like it belongs on an elephant?  It’s hard to hide cracked, thick heels in sandals and you CAN fix them before spring.

Reclaiming your baby soft feet is easy when you have the right tools for the job.  All it takes is strong exfoliation.  A pumice stone alone doesn’t cut it if you have really thick foot skin.  You need CHEMICAL EXFOLIATION AND PHYSICAL EXFOLIATION to get your feet back into sandal-ready shape.

• Chemical exfoliation means using a skin care product that softens and dissolves the thick skin so that you can actually get somewhere when you try to file it off.  The best product for thick, rough heel skin is Glytone Heel and Elbow Cream*.  This is a seriously strong glycolic acid cream that’s a miracle for rough feet!
• Physical exfoliation is what you do when you file or scrape off your rough thick foot skin. The best foot scraper is the PedEgg, which you can get at www.PedEgg.com.  You could also use a foot file like the pedicurists use, or a pumice stone.

Dr. Cynthia Bailey’s 3 Steps To Treat Thick, Rough Skin on Your Feet

1. Soak your feet in warm water, or take a warm shower for 10-15 minutes.
2. Rub the rough skin off your feet using the PedEgg or a foot file while your feet are wet.  Rub off as much rough skin as possible without hurting your feet.
3. Apply Glytone Heel and Elbow Cream while your feet are still damp.  Towel dry your feet, but you need to apply the cream while they are still damp.  Apply the Glytone Heel and Elbow Cream liberally to the thick areas, including the toes and nail beds if needed.  Put on a clean pair of cotton socks and leave them on for at least 8 hours.

Depending on how thick your foot skin is, this process can take between one week and several months for all the thick, rough skin to come off of your feet.

If irritation develops, let the skin heal before you resume the treatment

Once you have soft, smooth skin on your feet, repeat this process as necessary to maintain the results.  Some people find that once their feet are soft again, they can maintain the results by switching to my Anti Aging Body Rejuvenation Kit products and treating their feet when they treat the rest of their body skin in the shower.

Having baby soft feet that invite a foot massage is easy, and they look so much better in sandals!

*  Glytone Heel and Elbow Cream is a 30% glycolic acid cream and is REALLY strong.  If used in any manner other than I’ve stated above it WILL be too strong and irritate/burn your skin.  It works beautifully for thick skin on the feet, but even though Glytone markets it for elbows, only the thickest, roughest elbows need this strong glycolic acid product. Because Glytone Heel and Elbow Cream is so strong, I do not sell it directly to customers on my web site.  I will sell it by phone if you call my office at 707 829-0937 during the normal business hours (Pacific Time).  This enables us to be sure that you have read this information and understand that you are buying a very strong (and very effective) professional grade glycolic acid skin care product.  You can also order it directly from large retail sites like Dermstore.com without this precaution.

If you found this post helpful, you may also want to read:

Essential Winter Skin Care: 2 Simple Tricks To Healthy Winter Skin

Dermatologist’s Simple Tips for Athlete’s Foot Fungus Treatment

Brilliant Skin Care For The New Decade

Chapped Lips: The Remedy Depends On The Cause

Pandemic Of Dry Hands: Hand Sanitizers, The Swine Flu And Tips To Save Your Hands

Making Sense Of The Vitamin D Dilemma And Sun Exposure

Photo Attribution: Sean Dreilinger

Alkaline foods are the foods that our ancestors ate when they were primitive hunters and gatherers. Our bodies like these foods.  Before humans learned to farm, they ate fresh foods; things that they could find or hunt.  Today, processed food and animal based foods are so easy to come by, but they aren’t the foods you should eat as the foundation of your diet.

I became intrigued by The Alkaline Diet because it had a remarkable impact on some health issues I had in my own life.  I first encountered the concept of acid/alkaline foods from Elizabeth Sherman, a very knowledgeable Herbalist and Acupuncturist in Sonoma County.  She helped me implement an alkaline diet in my own life and I experienced a much welcomed resolution of the health problems that where troubling me (life impacting aches and pains from musculo-skeletal issues, digestive misadventures, Raynaud’s Phenomenon, peri-menopausal sleep issues to name a few).  Elizabeth gave me a reading list and reference charts for acid/alkaline foods (see below).  I’ve found that alkaline food lists are complex and often contradictory.  It’s taken a lot of study on my part to develop practical guidelines for my own diet and for sharing with interested patients.  The end result is what I call an Alkaline Food Pyramid. It’s very similar to the Mediterranean Food Pyramid and so I’ve termed the combination The Alkaline Mediterranean Diet.

I recommend that you look over my general guidelines then refer to the food chart links to find the alkaline foods you like best.  Let these foods become the foundation of your diet.  Use the same charts to find out which of your favorite foods are highly acid.  Eat these in smaller amounts so that your overall daily diet is composed of about 60% alkaline foods.

The Alkaline Food Pyramid

• The base of your Alkaline Food pyramid should be vegetables.
• Fruits come next, eaten liberally, but to a lesser extent than veggies.
• Whole grains are above fruits.
• Oils, nuts and lean sources of protein (fish and chicken) come next.
• Acid forming treats like sugar, wine, steak, fried foods, refined ‘junk’ food etc are thrown in sporadically at the top.

Explaining the Relative Acid/Alkaline Values to Foods

The hardest part about trying to eat mostly alkaline foods is in knowing which foods are acid or alkaline in the first place.  There is inconsistency among food charts and alternative medicine experts regarding the acid and alkaline values of specific foods.  Plus, the values don’t make intuitive sense. In general, alkaline forming foods include: most fruits, green vegetables, peas, some beans, lentils, some grains, spices, herbs and seasonings, and some seeds and nuts. Some alkaline foods are more alkaline than others.  Acid forming foods include: meat, fish, poultry, eggs, most grains,some beans and nuts, sweeteners, refined/processed foods, coffee and alcohol. Some acid foods are only slightly acid and others are very acid forming.  Ideally about 60-80% of what we eat should be alkaline foods or only slightly acid forming.  (60% for maintenance, 80% for restoring health).

From my research, I’ve found two fairly good reference charts for acid/alkaline food values:

1. A simple list of acid/alkaline foods from Thebestofrawfood.com
2. The best list of relative acid/alkaline values within a food category (eg. comparing which grains are best) from Perque.com

12 Steps to The Alkaline Mediterranean Diet:

1. Eat mostly veggies, either cooked or raw.
2. Eat fruits, but eat more veggies than fruits. Within the fruit category, emphasize avocados and citrus.  The most alkaline fruits are apples, bananas (especially not overripe) nectarines, blackberries, dates and raisins.
3. Eat whole grains but emphasize those that are more alkaline, plus, eat more veggies than whole grains.  My recommendation is to emphasize millet, spelt, buckwheat and quinoa over wheat and rice.   I use millet and quinoa like rice and will post recipes over time.  Wheat is more acid and wheat bread thus should be a treat, not a diet staple.
4. Eat legumes (beans), but they can be a little acidifying.  They’re certainly less acidifying than other sources of protein such as meats.  They’re extremely healthy and a great source of non-animal protein.  Try to eat the most alkaline legumes like soy bean, including tofu. Other more alkaline legumes are lentils, lima beans and white beans. Again, like whole grains, the idea is to eat more veggies than legumes.
5. Nuts and seeds are generally slightly acid so moderation is important. They’re packed with nutrition and belong in a healthy diet.  Almonds and sesame seeds are alkaline and the best choice. Plus, eat raw nuts because raw nuts are less acid than roasted nuts.
6. Goat and soy are your best dairy choices. Dairy is generally acid forming.  Again, moderation is important here.  Goat dairy is preferable to cow or sheep dairy because it is less acid forming, and possibly even alkaline forming. There are a lot of great goat cheeses and goat yogurt is delicious so substituting goat dairy products for cow dairy isn’t impossible. Substituting soy milk for cow milk is also easy.
7. Chicken and fish are your best meat protein sources. Protein from meat and fish is acid forming. Lean fish and chicken are much less so and thus the animal protein of choice.  Consider the other animal proteins a treat and not staples in your diet.
8. Olive and flax oils are your best oil foods.  Oils are acidifying, but olive oil and flax oil are the least so and should be your main oil sources.  They’re packed with other great nutritional riches as well. (I’ll cover oils in a future post because they are a complex and really important part of a healthy diet)
9. Most popular beverages are acid forming so don’t forget to notice what you drink during the day.  Beverages have a really big impact on your body’s acid/alkaline balance because most of us drink a lot of our favorite beverages throughout the day.  Acid forming popular beverages including coffee, wine, beer, liquor,soda and sports drinks.  From what I can tell, green tea is more alkaline and thus better than black tea. Herb teas of course are best.  Plain mineral water is alkaline and a great way to recover from an acid food binge.
10. Miscellaneous foods that are acidifying include eggs, chocolate, artificial sweeteners and condiments like ketchup, soy sauce, salt, mayonnaise, mustard.
11. Sprouts of all kinds are very alkaline so it’s good to include them in your diet.
12. Finally, Green Drinks (a powder added to water) are very alkaline and many holistic practitioners recommend using them to gain and maintain an alkaline body pH. My favorite is Barlean’s Greens which I buy at Whole Foods.

The even simpler guidelines that I use for my own alkaline diet are:

1. Ideally about 70% of the foods I eat should be alkaline.
2. I try to eat more veggies than anything else.
3. I stock my kitchen with lower sugar fruits with an emphasis on apples, citrus and bananas.
4. I use more quinoa and millet over wheat. I also use raw oats and brown rice.
5. I substitute goat cheese and yogurt for cow milk cheese and yogurt.  I use soy milk in place of cow milk.
6. I eat a lot of soy beans and tofu,and I try to use white beans and lentils more than other beans.
7. I use olive oil as my main cooking and salad dressing oil.  (See my Olive Harvest Post) Flax oil is also good for salads, but I never cook with it because it looses it’s rich nutritional value when heated.
8. I use almonds as my main nut. I also eat a lot of flax seeds and some sesame seeds.
9. Green tea is my primary caffeinated beverage.
10. I use acid foods sparingly as treats.  I’m a foodie and I regularly enjoy my acid forming treats, but they’re not the main foundation of my diet.  If I do go on an acid food binge, I use an alkalinizing green drink according to the package instructions, natural mineral water, plus a week of focused alkaline dietary choices to get back on track.

My aches, pains and other health issues are so much better since I’ve been living on The Alkaline Mediterranean Diet.  It also helps me maintain my weight in my middle age years.  The occasional ‘treat’ doesn’t raise havoc with my health now because the foundation of my diet is alkaline.

What foods make your health problems worse?  What dietary changes have you found helpful? I’d love to hear what you’ve learned about diet and your health.  Send me your stories using my Contact Page.

Resources on the web to further explain the acid/alkaline diet and to give you more specific ideas which foods are alkaline or acid:

Acid/Alkaline food list
The Acid/Alkaline Food List from Thebestofrawfood.com ( http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/support-files/alkalifoodlist.pdf)

Dr. Russell M. Jaffe’s Acid/Alkaline Chart at Perque.com (http://www.perque.com/HSC_AcidAlkChart_7-07FINAL.pdf)

Dr. Susan Brown’s Website devoted to bone health (a big acid/alkaline issue):
http://www.betterbones.com/alkalinebalance/default.aspx

Books
The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods, Michael T. Murry, Joseph Pizzorno. (I use this book as a reference for nutritional health ideas, but I don’t use their acid/alkaline food values list because it’s not consistent with most of the other lists I’ve found. ) Available at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Healing-Foods-Michael-Murray/dp/074348052X

If you found this post helpful, you may want to read some of my other posts on nutrition:

Understanding the Alkaline Diet

The Alkaline Mediterranean Diet- A Magic Wand For Overall Health And Beauty

Making Sense of the Vitamin D Dilemma And Sun Exposure

Dermatologist’s Recommendations for Natural Skin Health: Kefir, the best probiotic for healthy skin

Natural Skin Health: Dermatologist’s Diet Recommendations for Healthy Skin

Photo Attributions:

Thebittenword: http://www.flickr.com/photos/galant/ / CC BY 2.0