by solveeczema | Jan 28, 2008 | About Eczema, Solveeczema.org
I have been hearing from more and more people whose doctors gave them an article about solveeczema.org or a link to the web site. I heard this from a mom in Florida recently:
I want to start by saying Thank You!!! You have helped my family sooo much. I have two children with allergies and eczema. I have been through so many doctors, and all they kept saying was use more lotion, use more drugs. One doctor told me, “You’re in a search for a cause and effect that does not exist … use more lotion!!!”
I was desperate … on top of caring for my son’s disability I was dealing with the scratching and bleeding and cries through the night. I always thought the detergent, which was [commonly recommended scent- and dye-free detergent], was causing a problem… however the doctors said no.
Finally I switched to our current allergist who gave me your printout. I removed the detergent and used soap flakes for washing clothes and also used Ben’s Bar from Ipswich Bay Soap Company. After two weeks my kids’ skin cleared up completely. They still get some spots from time to time on their feet and hands, but we can deal with that. My daughter had been covered from head to toe. Also my son has a breathing problem which needed a nebulizer from time to time. Barely ever do we use it now (except if he has a cold).
Thanks soooo much again. Before reading your article, going to the park with my daughter was such a nightmare. She would be itching and scratching so hard blood would show. I thought how unfair it was for a child to not be able to enjoy life. My kids are doing soooo well. Their skin looks beautiful and they are very happy!!!! Thank you.
Kattie
by solveeczema | Jan 17, 2008 | About Products
Since it’s cold and flu season, and soon enough to be allergy season…
On a recent Oprah Winfrey program, featured medical expert Dr. Oz talked about rinsing sinuses using a “Neti pot.” I have no experience with this product, but the testimonials on the program were very positive. Someone on Oprah’s staff was able to get chronic congestion under control by using it. I also like that Dr. Oz admonished people to continue to figure out why they get chronic sinus congestion (if that is why they use it) and deal with the underlying problem, not just rely on the rinses.
Another option I have found is a product called “Simply Saline – Sterile Saline Nasal Mist” from Blairex Laboratories www.simplysaline.com. On the package it says it’s “The only sterile preservative-free nasal saline solution.”
The mist is very gentle, and I find, less frightening to children than other ways of flooding the sinuses with fluid to help clear congestion. I LOVE this product! And it’s just sterile saline. I just had a cold myself recently, with severe congestion, yet I was able to breathe and sleep every night because of this stuff.
While surfing over to Simply Saline’s web site, I found that Blairex also makes a diaper creme and ointment (the names of which I’m not going to print because of search and spam problems that come up with certain terms), as well as a new product for the face and lips, Boudreax’s Baby Kisses. (The links are to drugstore.com product descriptions, rather than to Blairex, because drugstore.com gives the ingredients while the manufacturer does not. I don’t know why it is so few manufacturers list their ingredients on their own sites! Drugstore.com is a great place to find product contents, one of the reasons I shop there.)
Looking at the ingredients in the above cremes, all are probably good barrier moisturizers. I have not used them or gotten feedback about them, but the ingredients seem similar to other good barrier moisturizers.
For one ingredient I have never come across before, Peruvian balsam, I found an informative link to help evaluate whether individual allergy might be an issue (or not): [link]
Boudreax’s body wash and shampoo, however, appear to be detergent based.
by solveeczema | Jan 1, 2008 | About Products
Today I happened across a toothpaste from Auromere that has no detergent in it. Let me be very clear that all of the other Auromere toothpastes contain sodium lauryl sulfate; only this particular flavor is detergent-free. It is called “Non-foaming” on the label. It’s an Ayurvedic toothpaste with Neem oil, imported from India. I have not tried it myself.
Weleda is the only brand I know of that has no detergents in any of its toothpastes. Well, actually, there are probably other European brands, but they all contain sorbitol. I have not paid attention to those with sorbitol because I am personally very sensitive to it. So, Weleda is the only brand I know of that has no detergents and no sorbitol in its toothpastes.
by solveeczema | Dec 19, 2007 | Solveeczema.org
With my last post, I began a temporary experiment with fundraising. I’ve been thinking about doing something for awhile, because the domain name renewals for solveeczema.org and solveeczema.com come up in a few months. I’d like to renew for five or ten years, but it’s costly in such big chunks (even though the per-year cost goes down). Also, while I’m at it, I was hoping to transfer hosting to a better service, updating the site is just so arduous at the moment, I am rarely able to do it.
I have to admit that I have also wondered if I could duplicate some of the blogging stories I have read about lately, where bloggers have gotten enough donations to devote more time to their blogs.
However, I have also read that when a connection to a pay site like paypal links from your site, it’s standing in the search engines drops (for certain kinds of sites). Whether it’s true or just coincidence, visits to this blog dropped an order of magnitude when I put the donations button up. I also lost a subscriber. I put up the site in the first place to help people; the donations button came out of my considering how I could afford to keep doing that and maybe do more, but I seem to be bumbling that attempt.
I plan on removing the donations button in two or three months anyway, and leaving it off, especially if I am able to renew the domain name for several years. Please consider a small donation to support the solveeczema site and this blog. Given what has happened, I don’t think I will be putting a donations button on the solveeczema.org site after all.
by solveeczema | Dec 15, 2007 | Solveeczema.org, Uncategorized
I am experimenting with a temporary donations button on this blog – and hopefully soon, on the solveeczema website – to ask for support to renew the domain names and transfer the site to a better web hosting service in a few months.
If possible, I also hope to afford to devote more time to updating the site, answering emails and questions, and maintaining the blog on a more regular basis. (In the interest of full disclosure, I will not be able to spend full-time with this no matter what the level of support. But I will be able to do far more than the small, spare moments I can offer now.)
This is a small blog; small donations are welcome!
If, however, someone has the means and desire to be a major angel, I would add the following wish list:
1) Funds to subscribe to relevant online dermatology and microbiology scientific journals – to help me finish a scientific article sooner.
2) Support a study! In the past year, more than one doctor has offered to help conduct a study. I have had little ability to follow up. (If you can fund a study, please write to me through the “Feedback” heading/link on my home page. Rather than donating to me directly – solveeczema.org is a simple volunteer effort, not an official non-profit, so donations are not tax deductible – we could arrange for you to donate to the institution where the study would be conducted, where it would more likely be deductible.)
I have to admit that I am not very comfortable asking for donations, I hope it does not make my readers uncomfortable. The web site needs more than I have been able to give to it; I would like to do much more.
When I solved my son’s eczema, I was unable to keep up with questions and requests for help from friends and acquaintances, so I wrote a few articles. When the articles were published, I was inundated with requests for information, so I put up the solveeczema web site.
I can see from feedback that the site is doing a tremendous amount of good. I hear from people all over the world that the information helped them understand and eliminate a child’s or their own eczema. More than one doctor has told me that they refer patients to the information. I can see that this solution is consistent with a plethora of existing scientific literature.
I will take the whole thing to the next step sooner or later – a scientific paper, a study, etc. – thus I am experimenting with donations to see if I can make that happen “sooner.”
[Donation button disabled – please see side bar.]
