The cooking creator says doctors in Germany found the condition after her skin, hands and scalp flared for weeks without explanation from U.S. doctors.
Cooking content creator Nara Smith said she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in Germany after months of severe eczema flares that U.S. doctors treated only with steroids, according to Glamour.
Smith said the condition began after the birth of her second child, starting as a small patch of eczema that spread until her eyes swelled shut, her hands stopped moving and her scalp bled. She also experienced hands that turned purple and rashes on her face, which she said made her feel like "my body was betraying me."
After a month of daily flare-ups, Smith traveled to Germany and saw a range of doctors, including a general practitioner and a homeopathic doctor, before receiving the autoimmune diagnosis. She said getting an explanation, rather than only steroid prescriptions, let her approach her health "in a way that felt more manageable."
Smith said the experience pushed her toward cooking from scratch and eating whole foods rather than restrictive elimination diets, which she said became the basis for the online cooking videos that built her following and led to her cookbook, Homemade.
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