Albumin Loss: Eat More Proteins

A defining characteristic of exfoliative dermatitis is, obviously, exfoliation. The first wave of skin loss happens about 2-6 days after the start of the first patch of erythema. The skin may peel off in small sheets; don’t pull it off as your skin is thinning and you may be prone to cracks and bleeding. Indeed, one clue to a possible underlying cause of erythroderma is that the skin is growing too quickly compared to its normal rate of growth. It is also shedding too quickly, a process that is usually imperceptible to most of us. This peeling is probably associated with a protein known as CEA and we shall look at this more closely in the section on etiology.