...a story of my own.
My middle child was born with allergies, quite literally a couple of patches of eczema under each leg on the day she arrived. The midwife dismissed them, as did the doctor, but she was an excessively unhappy baby and over time the patches grew and began to cover her entire body until it was obvious she had severe atopic dermatitis.
The creams only seemed to make things worse. Her allergies increased, spreading to asthma, hayfever, severe food and drug reactions. Every day of her life she was driven crazy with the itching; I vividly recall lying her down on her towel after a bath when she was around 18 months old; she was scratching her legs, crying with frustration, and, with a look of desperation no baby should ever know anything about, holding her arms out and begging, 'help me'.
And I did. I read and researched, took her to specialists, made my own creams and ointments, tried a thousand others, changed her diet, her bedding, her toys. Stopped wearing perfume, used homemade cleaning products, the least offensive washing powders. Picked my way through the complicated maze of sensitivities and true allergies; every day something else, something new.
Eventually things changed for the better. The itching lessened, the patches shrunk, the unhappy baby grew into a joy-filled pre-schooler. Years of dedication and educating myself on her particular allergies and their effect on her particular body had made a genuine difference. How much of one, I'll never quite know - but I do know that when people saw how well she was doing and told me how lucky I was, I became angry. I knew how hard we had worked and how quickly things worsened again when we dropped our guard. They still do. So luck, schmuck.
Most of all, I learned that my actions could make someone's life better. That making mistakes was part of the process and just meant I needed to try again. That I could make use of experts without having my actions dictated to by them. That I could trust my own understanding, and rely on my own persistence.
And, of course, that I had been blessed with a daughter who was one of the very best.
(Submitted by Megan Young: www.thescentofwater.typepad.com)
My middle child was born with allergies, quite literally a couple of patches of eczema under each leg on the day she arrived. The midwife dismissed them, as did the doctor, but she was an excessively unhappy baby and over time the patches grew and began to cover her entire body until it was obvious she had severe atopic dermatitis.
The creams only seemed to make things worse. Her allergies increased, spreading to asthma, hayfever, severe food and drug reactions. Every day of her life she was driven crazy with the itching; I vividly recall lying her down on her towel after a bath when she was around 18 months old; she was scratching her legs, crying with frustration, and, with a look of desperation no baby should ever know anything about, holding her arms out and begging, 'help me'.
And I did. I read and researched, took her to specialists, made my own creams and ointments, tried a thousand others, changed her diet, her bedding, her toys. Stopped wearing perfume, used homemade cleaning products, the least offensive washing powders. Picked my way through the complicated maze of sensitivities and true allergies; every day something else, something new.
Eventually things changed for the better. The itching lessened, the patches shrunk, the unhappy baby grew into a joy-filled pre-schooler. Years of dedication and educating myself on her particular allergies and their effect on her particular body had made a genuine difference. How much of one, I'll never quite know - but I do know that when people saw how well she was doing and told me how lucky I was, I became angry. I knew how hard we had worked and how quickly things worsened again when we dropped our guard. They still do. So luck, schmuck.
Most of all, I learned that my actions could make someone's life better. That making mistakes was part of the process and just meant I needed to try again. That I could make use of experts without having my actions dictated to by them. That I could trust my own understanding, and rely on my own persistence.
And, of course, that I had been blessed with a daughter who was one of the very best.
(Submitted by Megan Young: www.thescentofwater.typepad.com)
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