my eczema story

Note: This is not medical advice. For atopic dermatitis, I encourage you to consult a dermatologist or doctor for medical diagnosis and primary care. My services are complementary and not a substitute.

How I got here

I enjoyed a healthy and happy pregnancy in sunny Dubai. When our first child was born, we fell head over heels in love with our little boy. As any parent knows, our lives were turned completely upside down! What a love bomb to be blessed with! My whole nervous system rewired to make taking care of this little possum my number one priority in the world.

We planned a trip to Australia to introduce my parents to their grandchild and spent my maternity leave with family. So we flew with our little baby and arrived, exhausted, in Brisbane.

Prior to this, we had noticed that his skin was very red, and at about 6 weeks old, our son was diagnosed with eczema.  We have a family history of eczema on my side even though it skipped me.

In Australia, his skin did the opposite of calming down. His entire body was red and oozing. The only area that wasn’t red was under his nappy. Already here, the chaos of eczema problem solving was fully set in. What was causing this? Why? Was I doing something wrong?

Many sympathetic family members and passers by felt urged to help us, and came with their best advice including creams, soaps, diets and rituals. We tried what we could.

Figuring out what to do

Our first strategy was to identify triggers like detergents and foods. The medical system was not offering more than topical steroids to treat the symptoms. But due to the label, we were advised not to use it before age 2, and after that, never for too long. So it was really up to us to navigate what we could do for our suffering baby. While in Australia, we ordered a skin patch test, which just irritated his already sensitive skin, and the results were not significant.

When he could reach to scratch himself I felt horrified to wake up to the sound. We eventually found some relief in ‘Scratch-me-Nots’ - silky sleeves with mittens that he could wear to bed and we even started putting them on him during the day.

Later, back in Dubai, we were still worried about allergies and ordered a blood test. No significant results to work with. So what was making him so red and itchy?

My husband found a mum on the internet talking about superwashing and SLS’s. We learned what we could about this and dutifully removed all SLS’s from our lives. We superwashed our clothes and linens at least 6 times each to wash out the SLS’s from previous detergents.  It felt like that machine was running all day and all night - not fun.

The story of this and our early eczema journey was that we would try one (difficult or expensive) thing, and his skin would flare up again. Try another thing, flare up again. Quite a cycle as new parents, feeling frustrated, tired and completely out of control.

My career took us to South Africa, Switzerland and Denmark. In Switzerland (age 18 months) we were actually told by a doctor (expert in eczema from an Eczema School) that our son would have eczema for life and we should expect his skin to look like thick, rough 'elephant skin' around his ankles and wrists. What a shocking thing to be told. We were suggested an immunosuppressant cream, which gave serious side effects, so that encouraged us to keep seeking a more natural, holistic solution.

During this time I was working by day, breastfeeding/eczema care at night, and my husband was daytime carer. By 2.5 years, we had tried these approaches:

Recovery creams and high lipid (fat) creams

Wet wrapping

Medicinal creams - topical steroids and immunosuppressants

Medicinal baths

Mittens

Special pyjamas

Special bedding

SLS-free detergent

Mould testing

Exclusion of entire groups of food and/or food chemicals

Supplements

Air purifiers

No pets

Reflexology

Doctor appointments  - Dubai, Brisbane, Johannesburg, Zurich, Copenhagen

When everything changed

When we moved to Denmark permanently, something finally occurred to us to link the more subtle aspects of the environment with eczema, skin inflammation and an overactive immune system - things like light, water and earthing. We consulted a renowned doctor and thought-leader in light, mitochondria and health, who helped us on our way.

Honestly disappointing, to think that we had seen doctors on 5 continents, all of them focused solely on symptom treatment - except the last doctor - who gave us a deeper explanation and hope for a sustainable solution.

We gradually acquired dozens of books on the topic of mitochondia, circadian rhythm, light and health, and saw great progress in our own situation by making some simple but powerful changes. The relief we began to feel, seeing our son heal and flare up less and less, was life-changing.

We could sleep again.

A principled approach to navigating eczema

We learned so much navigating this health crisis, which forced us to clarify our values as individuals, as a couple and family. Our mindset approach looked something like this:

Stay optimistic - believe in clear and healthy skin

Refuse to accept the lifetime diagnosis

Seek out root cause solutions

Realise that outer health represents inner health

Find and remove major stressors

Support the body rather than suppress it

Gently nudge with natural signals to improve the body's ability to regulate itself

Expect big, positive, compound effects from small improvements

Get sleep

Get support

My professional journey

Instead of staying in my career, I decided to stay at home for a while after our second child was born. It was a beautiful time with small children, and I began to read, read, read.

I always felt there was more to learn from others and I really wanted to get formally educated on the latest science around eczema. I had my BSc (Biomedical Science) as a foundation for understanding the human body. So I started with joining the first cohort of students at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology. Sometimes I look back and feel like it was a true miracle that I even found this school to study with! Talk about the right place, at the right time.

From here, I felt added hope for other eczema sufferers out there - because I could genuinely confirm that we were on the right track with our family practices. For example, one's circadian rhythm and light environment has an effect on mitochondrial health, vitamin D and melatonin - all 3 linked tightly to the prevalence of eczema. I compiled 100s of papers to support the 'quantum' part of our approach to eczema - and continue to do so.

Back then, I was at a crossroads whether I should return to my legal career or pivot into health. It was incredibly exciting to see the positive effects of our efforts, but no one talks about this possibility, so it all made me wonder - is that my role here?

I ultimately chose health. And another baby 🙂

In order to feel qualified and well-rounded in helping others with such fragile health issues, I decided to study Naturopathy in Denmark. During my education, I paid particular attention to everything related to eczema. The result is a combination of naturopathic problem-solving, a catalogue of best-practice strategies that can be tailored to each individual, coupled with the evidence-based field of quantum biology, as applied to eczema.

Sharing knowledge that people don't have the time to acquire themselves

Our eczema journey has been pretty wild. We consulted many doctors, spent a lot of money on trial and error, many sleepless nights tired and worrying and all the brain power analysing and gaining the knowledge we needed to approach this. So I'm very happy to write that we made it to the other side. We have a healthy child who would not be diagnosed with eczema if we took him to the doctor today. So much for the elephant skin prognosis!

Now being a naturopath who helps other families fills me with a wonderful sense of purpose and gratitude.

We have learned so much that helps our entire family, that I can easily say that our son's eczema has been the greatest health gift of our lives. This is how it all felt:

The red dip of our journey was truly awful at the time, even though I can see with hindsight that the journey had its purpose. Although I could never promise the same outcomes (everyone is different plus that is against Danish laws), I wanted to share a concept used by Coach Tony Robbins which encourages us to help eachother - try to build bridges to help other people during the same pain and struggles.

Please get complementary, holistic support

If any of my story resonates with you because you have eczema in your life, I invite you to make a decision. You can book a free discovery call and I promise to use 15 minutes of my time with you, as a gift to every person suffering from eczema.
If you're ready to cut through the frustrations and receive individualised, best-practice advice for holistic eczema care, you can book my Shift Eczema package.

If you are suffering with a child with eczema, and you don't choose to work with me, please do find someone who can provide holistic support with an understanding of quantum biology OR send me an email with what you think you need instead and I may be able to make a plan with you, or refer you: hello@angelajensen.com