Eczema / Lichen Simplex Chronicus Cured With St. John's Wort

I suffered from a severe case of Lichen Simplex Chronicus (aka Neurodermatitis) for about 20 years. Prescribed creams, suntanning, sea water baths, and various natural therapies may have provided some relief on occasion, however, the disease progressed overall, and I had just about given up...

until something extraordinary happened a year and a half ago, when I decided to try St John's Wort to deal with a temporary and unrelated anxiety condition. I started taking 300mg a day, which worked very well for my anxiety, as the quality of my sleep improved quickly. What I was not expecting, was the disappearance of all the red plaques, flaky skin, itching symptoms and oozing on my lesions after only 6 weeks! I then increased the dose to 600mg a day, and after about 5-6 months, all the scarring left behind from 20 years of combat with the disease was gone. I now have fresh new skin everywhere the lesions used to be, and signs of the disease have not returned for about a year.

Puzzled about this unexpected miracle as it was unfolding, research on the Web led me to a few explanations, one of which was the presence of a bacteria called Staphylococcus Aureus in the lesions of 90% of patients suffering from atopic dermatitis. Further reading lead me to a potent molecule in St John's Wort called Hyperforin. The molecule had been studied extensively to treat depression, but one of its less-documented properties was its high antimicrobial potency against Staphylococcus Aureus.

Additional reading about St John's Wort lead me to its documented use since antiquity in helping repair small cuts, bruises and burns, attributed to a second molecule called Hypericin.

I therefore have excellent reasons to believe that St. John's Wort extract helped in repairing my damaged skin and getting rid of a tough-to-beat bacterial infection, to which most conventional antibiotics are known to resist. Maybe most varieties of Atopic Dermatitis are nothing more than a form of damage to the protective layers of the skin that eventually become colonized by Staph bacteria... We could speculate for hours, despite all the scientific theories about this disease being stress and immune-related. Nevertheless, I am cured and hope this information may help others in achieving comparable success.