Monday, April 29, 2013

Our story

My children have had eczema their whole lives. We have three kids, and none of them were spared this disease that sucks away at quality of life.

My first son got his at around 12 months, and his was contained mostly to his face and diaper area. We tried all we knew, but nothing except time helped.


 He "outgrew" his eczema for the most part, but on occasion a minor face rash will reappear.


We thought we'd escaped that fate after our daughter made it to almost 18 months with no sign of eczema. She did have a pretty bad diaper rash, but it never occurred to us that it could have been her body's manifestation of eczema.

And then, in December of 2012, it began. Our third son, who was about six months old at the time, started getting the same facial rash our first son had. And our daughter began breaking out in eczema all over her little body.




Over the months, we've watched it wax and wane, with no real pattern that we can determine whatsoever. Some days (hours, minutes even), it's awful. I cringe even looking at them, my heart breaks for them. Some moments it's better. But never has it ceased since it began.

They are prone to infection from the constant scratching and tearing open of their skin, which science proves carries more staph than those without eczema.




These last few pictures were taken recently, and as you might imagine from seeing them, pushed me to serious action.  My children are miserable, and our family has suffered tremendously lately.  Sleepless nights and behavior problems have been just a handful of the unpleasant side effects that go along with eczema.  But most importantly, seeing the pain on the faces of my children, I knew that enough was enough.  I was determined.  A determined mom will find a way.

And it was with those frustrations that I sat in the shower this past Thursday afternoon and I bawled.  And I begged God to heal my sweet children.  I begged Him to help me find a cure.  And on Friday, I took to Dr. Google (for the millionth time), but my gut told me to dig in.  The first few pages are always medical literature or news articles.  But my gut told me I needed to find some blog posts written by moms whose children had severe eczema and who were able to cure it.  Surely this existed!  So I dug in, to page 10, page 15, page 20...and eventually, I found it.

I found one blog written by a mom who linked to another.  She had cured her child's eczema by removing detergent from the home, a theory one mom on a mission developed eight years ago that completely cured her child.  That mom, who runs solveeczema.org, is incredible.  She has a science background, which no doubt helped her on her journey to solving her son's eczema.  

She has spent eight years gathering impressive data, speaking with chemists, doctors, biologists, etc.  The slideshow on the front page of that blog sucked me in, and a few minutes in, as she reads a letter from a mom who had tried everything for four years (elimination diets, naturopathy, herbs, chinese medicine, allergy testing, every cream imaginable, steroids, etc.), I began to weep.  This was it.  

This was our cure.  I knew instantly.  There was zero doubt.  It began as I read of the diaper-eczema connection.  One way to determine if your child has a detergent sensitivity is if your child has a clear diaper area.  The diaper is a non-detergent source that protects your child from the detergent residues in their clothing.  I knew instantly.  When we'd cloth diapered, which was washed in the same detergent-based laundry soap as everything else, our children had eczema all over their diaper areas.  When we switched to disposable diapers after becoming overwhelmed when my last was born (two in diapers, two children 17 months apart and three kiddos 3 and under was too much for this mama!), my daughter's eczema cleared up in her diaper area.  And ever since, both of my children who wear disposables have had no traces of eczema in their diaper areas.

We did the patch test she recommends on her site this past Friday and we saw some definite improvement of the eczema patches on her arm that were not infected.

So I gathered up non-detergent replacements for all the detergent in our home: Weleda Tooth Gel for the kids, Earthpaste for my husband and I, Dr. Bronner's soap for bathing and washing dishes and hands, Zum for our laundry and Cal Ben's shampoo and Liquid Dish Glow for, well, shampoo and dish soap.

Then I began to "superwash" our laundry.  Ten times for each load, I washed and washed and washed. And I scrubbed every surface of my house with Dr. Bronner's soap (diluted).  

Last night, I washed every member of this family in Dr. Bronner's soap and we went to bed in clean clothes and clean sheets.  And this morning?


A few days ago, it looked like this:


And my daughter, who definitely has it the worst, looked like this this morning:


And her wrists, which looked like this just a few days ago:


Now look like this:

The only eczema on their faces is the scabbed and infected patches.  I am floored by how well their eczema is already healing.  FLOORED.  

We are only halfway through the cleaning process.  I know we still have tons of detergent residues in our home, even if only in mattresses and air ducts, but that detergent dust will take awhile to clear. To see this sort of improvement so quickly is enough to move me to tears. To be able to offer my children relief is so powerfully emotional. When you've watched your children suffer, and you've tried everything under the sun, some days feel hopeless.  You begin to think you will never be able to help your child. When you actually witness another child tell your child, "Ew, gross!" when looking at her skin, you will do anything out of desperation. We barely leave our house anymore because we can't escape the unrelenting questions and opinions. My daughter is becoming old enough now that I know she is only a few months away from being able to understand that people think she is gross. You might as well rip my heart right out of my chest and chop it to pieces.

I'm starting this blog as a way to journal our switch away from detergent products.  Because I so desperately sought out others whose children had the severe form of eczema our children do, it wasn't even a question that we should document our own journey, in hopes that even one other mom can find solace in knowing that other children have experienced this, and other children have been helped.

Probably most importantly, I want to push as much traffic to solveeczema.org as is humanly possible.  The lengths this mother has gone to, the research she has done and the hours upon hours she must have spent compiling it all for her website, well, there are just no words to describe my gratitude.  She has changed our life.

I feel like I can already say with confidence, even though we are a long way from being totally healed, that detergent is our main problem.  There may be other issues that are contributing, but my gut knows this mother has stumbled across the "magic" cure.  I believe in my heart that she will be instrumental in curing eczema (and possibly asthma and allergies) and all but eliminating it from the world.  

I'm so excited for our journey ahead!