Our Battle with Eczema

Today was a fairly quiet day - no new baby calves. Jessie had girl scouts tonight, so Tyler had us all to himself, for a couple hours at least. I did find time to start a batch of laundry soap though.

Jessie has horrible eczema - so bad that some winters, her little legs would be nothing but raw, oozing skin. We tried our family doctor, we tried 2 dermatologists, and every natural health food store around. One dermatologist gave us a prescription for a cream that he had never seen fail. $298 a tube later, it didn't work (and to top it all off, we see on the News that this particular cream has a 1 in 75 chance of causing a form of skin cancer with prolonged use - it went to the trash in a hurry).

In looking online, I discovered homemade bar soap and laundry soap. Todd teases me all the time - living in the 21st century and making soap like your pioneer ancestors. Well, the pioneers must've been on to something. I make the homemade bar soap from here (I use the All Vegetable Blend - No Palm Oil recipe and don't add any coloring or fragrances) and I tell you what, within 2 baths/showers, her eczema is entirely gone. My bars aren't pretty, by any means, but they work. And one batch lasts a little over a year since she is the only one to use it.

The laundry soap I use is here . I have no idea if it is cost effective, but again, when used in combination with the bar soap, there are days I will pay any price to keep her eczema away. And just using it on the kids' laundry, 1 batch will last about 6 weeks, give or take.

Every now and then, I think about trying the soap with coloring or fragrance added, but. . .if the poor girl cannot use Dreft or Tide Free and Clear, do I really want to chance it? You would not believe the parents who tell me - oh she just needs to toughen up - she'll deal with it. I always want to tell them you deal with her when her legs itch so bad she has blood running down them - then tell me I'm crazy for making soap for her.

And while her eczema is certainly not life threatening, to her, it's very painful and annoying. So I will probably be making soap into my old age (or at least until she is old enough to make it herself.

I did go to Joann's and get more fabric for my red white and blue quilt:

As well as some fat quarters to make Jessie pillowcases for her bed:

But that is the extent of my sewing for the day!!

Kris