The 7 Day Allergy Makeover by Dr. Susanne ~ The Final Missing Pieces to Our Son’s Allergy Puzzle

Disclosure: We received an eBook in exchange for our review. The opinions expressed in this review, however, are 100% ours and not influenced in any way

by compensation or Dr. Susanne Bennett. This post also contains affiliate links. Read our full disclosure policy here.

Do you have a personal “allergy puzzle”? Or what about symptoms you may never have attributed to potential allergies? Symptoms such as…

• Fatigue
• Congestion
• Bloating
• Lack of motivation
• Brain “fog”/Inability to concentrate

Not your typical sneezing or hives type of symptoms!

Yet, more than half of all Americans test positive to one or more allergen (p. 10).

It’s a pretty rampant problem, I would say.

Dr. Susanne’s book came out of her own experience with her baby’s severe allergy issues

When I first learned about Dr. Susanne Bennett’s story of desperation with allergies with her 6-month old son, how she went back to school, a determined mama, to get to the bottom of his issues and that he has been living allergy-symptom-free for years ever since, I knew I had to find out more.

It was my good friend, Valerie, of Scrumptious Moms, who shared this with me, and I am forever grateful to her. Because I have just finished Dr. Susanne’s book, The 7 Day Allergy Makeover, and I am full of hope and excitement that if we implement what she recommends, my son may get to feel a little bit like a superhero.

Our son’s main allergy issue: Eczema

You see, not long ago while cleaning up, I discovered this note he had written to his skin:

Bless his little heart! It has been awful as a parent seeing him suffer with itchy skin through these last several years.

The Chef and I have seen him scratching in his sleep at times. We have tried all kinds of things to try to help him get relief from the itching …. and we’ve had some success. But some success is not good enough for this mama, especially after hearing Dr. Susanne’s story, and knowing that my son’s condition, as challenging as it has been at times, is nowhere near where her son was at just 6 months of age!

You may remember from previous posts that our family has food sensitivities, something that we discovered as we sought help for our son when our journey with eczema first began. The dietary changes have helped us to manage the eczema, but there have been plenty of times throughout these last several years that he’s had some, I would say, moderate outbreaks.

Just recently, he had some outbreaks that made me feel like we were right back where we first started. I couldn’t imagine why? Then I realized that it could have been a dietary change, recommended by a doctor, that we did not think would be a problem.

But after reading through Dr. Susanne’s book, evaluating our lives and recent changes, and doing some further research I believe I have a more complete understanding of the underlying causes of his skin problems! I believe Dr. Susanne and her book are an answer to prayer.

You see, when we were in the adoption process, waiting to bring our son home, his health began deteriorating while we waited. Our travel got delayed. It was a scary time.

But I had been reading and praying through the prayers in the book Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian. And every day, I prayed the prayer for your child’s health. A part of that prayer is that God would lead you to the doctors that can help your child. And here we are …

Review of The 7 Day Allergy Makeover

So here is my initial review of Dr. Susanne’s book. (Follow up posts to come as we implement the makeover in our lives.)

Dr. Susanne’s book takes the reader through a 7-Day process of evaluating 7 key areas of life, explaining in great detail, with plenty of scientific and/or medical research and fact why each of those key areas are an important piece of any allergy puzzle.

Simply put, The 7-Day Allergy Makeover condenses twenty-four years of clinical experience into an easy-to-implement plan for eliminating allergy symptoms from your life forever. ~Dr. Susanne Bennett (p. 10)

Now, the very first day, she addresses diet and the top foods that are problematic for those suffering from allergies. Our family has already been down this road. However, this book gave me a little better clarity on the issues caused by certain foods, and we are fine tuning our family diet a little more.

But since we were already ahead in the diet area, I decided to jump into one of the other key areas that I felt most urgent for my son … the living environment, most importantly, his bedroom. So that and some of his personal care products and routines we are focusing on first, because I believe those to be the biggest current problems for his skin.

He can go most of the day without a single complaint about his skin, but almost as soon as he hops into bed, the itching starts. Not every day, but most definitely when he’s in the middle of an outbreak.

Throughout each of the 7 days and key areas, Dr. Susanne gives practical, definitive suggestions about changes that can be made in each of those areas to help reduce overall exposure to allergens. The nice thing about the book and Dr. Susanne’s approach, though, is that it is set up to be a systematic day-by-day process for seven consecutive days; however, she is realistic to understand that some of the changes will require some research as well as a financial investment.

So she encourages the reader to make the changes that are doable for them in the short term and to work towards the other changes slowly, as you can, for long-term change and benefit. This is great also so as not to overwhelm the reader.

I can remember when we did the Elimination Diet feeling a great sense of overwhelm, at times. I think I’m past that now because we’ve been there before, having to make major life adjustments. So it doesn’t seem so overwhelming this time.

But I can see how a reader, who may never have had any experience like this, could feel overwhelmed reading through the book, which not only addresses major dietary changes but also changes for six other key areas in their lives. My biggest point in recognizing this is to say … take it at your own pace if you need to. If you’re able to make all changes immediately, by all means, go for it.

But don’t let overwhelm keep you from doing anything … take baby steps, one thing at a time.

I took this photo of the back of my son’s legs when we began our “Allergy Makeover” on Tuesday, May 27, 2014:

I shared it, with the note he’d written to his skin, on our Facebook fan page, where it has gotten plenty of attention, so I know we are not the only family struggling with this type of allergy issue.

If you have an eczema or allergy story you’d like to share, please leave us a comment:

Post by The Saturday Evening Pot.

I know it can help others to know they’re not the only ones struggling through something that can feel so frustrating!

We’ll take another photo after we’ve had a chance to implement more of the makeover and his skin has had some time to heal.

Get The 7 Day Allergy Makeover Book!

And if you’d like to get a copy of Dr. Susanne’s book for yourself, you can do that through her website here or directly from Amazon here.

Who this book is for

If you like treating your allergy symptoms with medicines, then this book is not for you! ]

But if you’d like to get to the root of your problem(s) and go at it from a prevention standpoint, this is a must-read.

The 7-Day Allergy Makeover is written for people who want to take an active role in their own healing. ~Dr. Susanne Bennett (p. 11)

We’ll be sharing more as we journey through the Allergy Makeover. Be sure to join (“like”) our Facebook community as we started an Allergy Makeover photo album there, where we’ll chronicle this process.

Our first step

Our very first step in tackling the kids’ bedroom was getting rid of some of the overabundance of stuffed animals they had. Yes, three trash bags full is a bit much:

It was a blessing in disguise because, really, we had wanted to do this sooner. They weren’t so keen on the idea, until we explained it would help with the itchy skin. We allowed them to each choose five to keep, and they will now reside in the playroom instead of the bedroom, as recommended in the book!

I look forward to sharing more about our progress as we make our way through implementing more of the makeover.

Take Control over Your Own Health!

If you have any allergy symptoms at all, including those mentioned in the beginning that aren’t necessarily seen as allergy symptoms … I would high recommend you grab a copy of the book and give it a try for yourself. Chances are, if you have any allergy symptoms, if they go unaddressed, your body could begin reacting to more and more allergens. Hopefully, you’ll never reach a point of more serious condition, but why risk it?

Here’s to better, allergy-symptom-free health for all of us who’ve suffered through allergies way too long!