Changing the diet turned out to be the best decision for a woman who took the family doctor’s advice and switched to a whole food plant-based diet (WFPBD). Livedoid vasculopathy is an extremely rare but chronic disease that is caused excruciating ulcers on the skin. Most times, it is linked with blood circulation, but there are no known factors behind this disease.
There is no cure for this mysterious disease however, some patients experienced improvements after taking anticoagulating medicines and wearing compression stockings. But for all others, there was no treatment available for it, hence they had to live with it.
This woman who has been living in New Zealand started experiencing the symptoms back in 2005 but this disease was diagnosed much later as livedoid vasculopathy.
Also read- The New CRISPR Treatment Brings Cholesterol Down by 57%
The symptoms that she experienced were very typical i.e. itching, hives, red blotches, swelling, and painful ulcers. Doctors were unable to determine if she is having a skin disease or allergy. In the end, she was declared as a special case, as mentioned in her case report.
She experienced these painful outbreaks after some weeks, or months continuously, since 2008. It was an extremely difficult time when even the clothes rubbing against her skin would make her cry. She tried wearing the compression stockings to help with ulcers and the swelling, but every time she stopped wearing these stockings, the ulcers re-appear.
Surpassingly, she had no other health problems except vasculopathy disease. She sometimes used ibuprofen as well as codeine to get over these ulcer’s pain. While discussing the potential treatments with her family doctor, there came a point where he highlighted the health benefits of eating whole food plant-based diet also called WFPBT, which includes veggies, fruits, grans, herbs, but doesn’t include dairy, fried foods, effs, processed foods, etc.
During this time, most doctors believed that she is suffering from capillaritis, which is a skin disease causing dry patches on the skin. So this idea of trying the whole food plant-based diet (WFPBD) was merely based on a common presumption that change in diet may improve blood circulation, helping against capillaritis.
Little they know, this patient actually started experiencing benefits, with this simple dietary modification.
In general, the WFPB diet offers enormous health benefits especially related to blood circulation and zero side effects as mentioned in the case report. In her case, this dietary change finally provided relief, though it was merely a coincidence.
During the follow-up after one month, the lesions appeared to be healing and her skin was improved. She also confirmed that her symptoms are less problematic now and she is feeling better than she has felt during all these years. After completing one year of this whole food plant-based diet (WFPBD), she has completely recovered for the first time in the last eight years. According to her, it’s like she has started a new life.
Also read- AstraZeneca Vaccine Found Efficient in Older Adults (New study)
For now, it is hard to establish if WFPB has truly caused these benefits or simply co-related with any of the other treatments. However, there is still some evidence which does suggest a positive indication towards dietary changes.
Although there are chances of livedoid vasculopathy to remit back even after completely healing at first, the relationship between the WFPB diet and these painful lesions is still plausible.
