August 6, 2026 • 27 mins
What is it like to care for a child with severe eczema when they’re too young to tell you what hurts? Jennifer Roberge, founder of The Eczema Company, joins host Dylan Marron to share her son Tristan’s experience with childhood eczema and the toll it took on their entire family. She opens up about sleepless nights, the helplessness of watching her child struggle with relentless itching, and the pressure of making treatment decisions when nothing seemed to bring lasting relief. Jennifer also shares how finding other parents online helped her feel less alone, why caregivers need support too, and how her search for answers eventually inspired her to help other families living with eczema.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It destroys your heart to see your child constantly non
stop rubbing, itching, scratching. And we did these things called
wet wrapping, where you take a bath in lukewarm water
and then you wear like slightly damp clothes on the
skin and then a dry layer with moisture underneath. It
can help with itching and the moisture. It's amazing. But
trying to do that with like a two two and
a half year old, like, it's not.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Comfortable, it stinks, it's not fun.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I'd put on TV and he'd be like a
little zombie and his little wraps staring at the TV,
and like I was, like, what is happening.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
If you're a parent, you want to believe that when
your child is going through something difficult, you'll know what
to do. But when your child is living with an
uncomfortable skin condition, there may not be one clear answer.
Care can become many things. It can become this constant
process of watching, of researching, adjusting, and then wondering whether
(00:55):
you're making the right decision for someone who may not
even have the words to tell you what they're feeling. Hello, friends,
and welcome or welcome back to skin querries. This is
a show about skin, but it's really a show about people.
Because skin health, as we know, doesn't exist in a vacuum.
(01:18):
It shapes how we're seeing. It shapes how we see
ourselves and our experiences of confidence, identity, community, and care.
I'm your host, Dylan Maren. Today we're looking at ezema
through the eyes of a caregiver, because ezema's impact can
(01:40):
extend far beyond the person who is living with it,
and when that person is your child, care can become
all consuming. You're trying to protect their confidence. You're trying
to make the right decisions. You want to help them
feel safe in a body that may not always feel comfortable.
In short, hard My guest today is Jennifer Robert, founder
(02:04):
of the Exema Company and mom to Tristan and Chloe.
Jennifer's son Tristan began experiencing ezema before he was old
enough to explain what he was feeling, which meant Jennifer
was often left trying to interpret it for him. Unlike
so many parents, she was expected to keep making decisions
even when the answers were unclear and nothing seemed to
(02:27):
bring lasting relief. Caring for Tristan became a constant balancing act.
She was trying to keep him comfortable while still letting
him be a kid, making the right decisions for someone
she loved more than anything, and living with the helplessness
of not being able to just take away his discomfort.
(02:48):
But Jennifer met that uncertainty head on. Whenever she could,
she looked for a way forward and eventually created the
kind of resource she wished her own family had when
they were struggling to find answers themselves. Before we really
get into it, let's go back to the start. When
Jennifer first noticed Tristan's skin a few days after he was.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Born, his skin just wasn't that soft, baby smooth skin
that you imagine.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I was a little bit bumpy, it was a little
bit rough in places.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
He had definitely had some baby acne, and it was
just rougher than I thought. And it started to spread
across his body a little bit, like in the creases
the folds of his skin. This is like a common
area to get eggzema, especially in babies. And you just
started to get more rashy, and it seemed a little
bit uncomfortable, a little bit of like a round, kind
of discoyed coin looking egzema on his creases, and the
(03:41):
next baby checkup we went to with the pediatrician, I
asked what it was and she told me it was ezema.
And I had never dealt with ezema, so it was
a bit surprising to me. She just was like, well,
it's really easy to do with You can take topical
cordzone if you want. And I think at that point
we didn't bother because it was pretty mild, but it
was a proper digno. So then we knew what it was.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Did that give peace a little to at least like
know what it was?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, a little bit. We started using skincare on him.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I mean a baby, you don't necessarily need to use
much or anything in most cases, but in that situation,
we started using some cream that we bought in the store.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We tried natural.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Bombs and it helped a little bit. That was probably
around he was three months old. I would say around
eighteen months is when things really flared up. And at
that time, the creams and everything just weren't working for him.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Would you mind telling me about that flare up? What
that looked like.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, So, when when he was about eighteen months old,
it started to spread and it got really really red
and rashy.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
He would get it really bad around his wrists.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And he would just like scratch and rub and you
could just tell he was really uncomfortable, and it was
what do we do?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You know, like, I guess it's time.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
At that point, we decided to try the steroids because
it was recommended by the doctors. So we tried the
topple of steroids and it helps for a few and
then you have to, of course come off them for
a time period to give your skin a break from
the medication, and it would come back and it would
be worse every time. At some point, I think it
was around when he was three, we were on a
(05:14):
very strong dose and he had scratched himself really bad
when he was out on the playground and he gave
himself an infection and he just like flew up. It
was just like red, rashy skin everywhere, and he looked
so terrible. You know. You take him out to the
parks and people stare and they look at you and
(05:36):
they all try to like they either avoid you because
they're scared they're going to catch whatever it is, or
they come up to you with a million different ways
to provide advice on different things, to try to help,
you know, and they're doing it out of love and help.
But it's horrible. Yea. You know, you feel like the
worst parent in the world, not being able to help
your child and to have them be in this really
(05:57):
uncomfortable situation and then to have everyone and you feel
very judged.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, very judged, of course. Of course. So Tristan is
like a baby when this is first happening. Babies famously
don't speak, can't speak. So how did it feel to
be caring for this person who couldn't really articulate what
they were going through? What did that feel like as
(06:22):
a parent? How are you doing emotionally as a parent?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh? I totally ignored myself? Are you kidding? That's the
worst possible thing.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You do, which everyone says the smart thing to do
is just fullygnore yourself. Don't put your oxygen mask on
at all. Oh I know, tell me how you were
not putting on your oxygen mask.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, I was, you know, beside myself with worry.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It was really really hard to feel like, how do
we help this little person that I am responsible for
and that I love, and like I just can't bear
to see them suffer. I was like staying up till
two and three in the morning researching products to help him,
and like contacting people and like lifelines, just throwing them
out and buying products from other countries. The other thing
(07:07):
that really was hard is as his skin got worse
and worse, and we were trying to figure out what
to do.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I have a husband.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
At one point I started questioning the topical steroids because
at some point you're like, well, how long do I
continue this? He's like two and we're like one of
the maximum doses for topical you know. I started to
get really worried about that. So my husband and I
started to argue about his treatment and his care, which
I'm sure a lot of people can you know, also
can relate to this when they have a child that's sick.
(07:36):
In any way, you don't always agree with your spouse
and like who decides? And I was like a bull
with this. I went after it and I just was
I told my husband I did not think it was
the answer.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
My intuition was telling me it was just not right
for him.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I think it can help a lot of people, but
for my son, something else was going on, and my
husband was very upset, and so I.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Kind of was like, well, let's try it my way
for a little while.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, your way is.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Not working anymore, you know. And that was hard for him.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And there was a time where I just didn't I
didn't know if we were going to stay married. I
was so like, couldn't believe he was on that side
and I was on this side. And I was like,
this would be easier if I left him and ran
away with a child to like do this. Yeah, I
don't need with all the stress going on, I need
his support.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And that was really hard. I felt like, who is
this person that doesn't agree with me?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah. It's also one of those tricky moments where you're
just like two parents and what you undeniably share in
common is that you want what's best for your son. Yeah,
And it is destabilizing when two people who only want
the best for the same person can disagree about that.
I totally get that. So I'm so aware that I'm
(08:51):
asking you to relive some really really hard times, But
can you share with me, like, what was like the
lowest point?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I would say it was when Tristram was probably two
two and a half and I had just had a
second baby, so you know, second babies don't sleep very well.
Then I had my son that wasn't sleeping well, and
my husband and I were taking turns sleeping with him
because we had to hold his arms down so he
didn't scratch himself to bleeding and stain his sheets and
(09:21):
rip his skin open in the night. So we were
taking turns, and I just wasn't, you know, I've been
getting enough sleep. His skin was it had finally reached
it was pretty much full body, and it was coming up.
It was starting to show in his face and he
was completely covered and he looked like a bird victim.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And he was suffering. And so we're suffering because.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You just it destroys your heart to see your child
like constantly non stop rubbing, itching, scratching. And we did
these things called wet wrapping, where you take a bath
and lukewarm water and then you wear like slightly damp
clothes on the skin and then a dry layer with
moisture underneath, and trying to do that. It's like a
great intense therapy when your skin is like horrific, right,
(10:00):
it can help so much.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It can help with itching and the moisture, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
But trying to do that with like a two two
and a half year old, it's not comfortable.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It stinks, like it's not fun.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So I'd put on TV and he'd be like a
little zombie in his little rap staring at the TV
and like I was like, what is happening?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
How is this going on?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And you have to do it every like two to
four hours with a newborn, and like fighting with my
husband and like late night trying to figure out what
to do for your child. It was it was really hard.
It was really, really, really hard. So that was my
low point. I called remember calling this like nurse someone
had recommended it some like exzema clinic.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I'm in Montreal.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
This is in like San Francisco, And I was like
crying to her. I was like what do I do?
I can't see you, Like is there any way you
can see us? Can we come see you? Like can
you give me some advice? On the phone, Like I
don't know what to do. Nothing's working. And I had
a closet full of skincare that you've tried, and like
half of them burn him because it's like a lot
of the lotion and creams if you're dealing with like
(11:01):
open skin, you know, if you have a cut and
you put on anything like a lotion that's got any
bit of alcohol of any kind, it would burn.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So he's like running away.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
From me half the time and I'm like trying to
put on cream.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And this is on top of normal parenting. Yeah right,
you know.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Oh, this isn't even getting to all the challenges that. Yeah,
come wow, okay, this is a lot. How were you
managing his symptoms day to day?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So when things got really severe, we had those mittens
and those were really helpful. They're like sleeves, so they
can't take them off easily. So we travel with those mittens.
He would wear those at night, he would wear them
in the day when he needed them. He gets this
like he would zone out in his eyes. I called
it like his itch trance, you know, And so it's like,
oh my gosh, whip out the mittens, put them on,
and then just like you know, he can't play super
(11:53):
well with them. So it's a little weird and awkward,
and like his fun time at the park starts to
not be as fun. Yeah, we were doing wet wrapping
on a cane as not too much, because it actually,
weirdly enough, can dry out your skin if you do
it too much, which is counterintuitive, but whatever, it is.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
What it is.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
You're holding all of these rules in your head at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Oh gosh, yes, and we were definitely doing you know,
morning skincare, afternoon skincare, evening skincare. Yeah, So chasing him
around with skincare is like the main thing, and then
just following him around all the time, watching him so
it doesn't scratch.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I can't tell you how many times I would say,
don't scratch.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Don't scratch like that, and then it's like also is
like a kid developing normal like instincts, which is like
you both listen to your parent and you also want
to disobey your parent in all the normal ways. So
it's like, if you're saying, don't scratch, you know, guess
what I want to do, right, No, I want to scratch.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah. And it's a reminder too, you know, like oh yeah,
like oh scratch, Oh I could scratch right right.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
It's in the way that a smoke and anti smoking
commercial some say is a smoking commercial. Yeah, this is
your no scratch PSA.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
This sounds like a very lonely position for you as
a parent. How did you channel this into.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Something Well, I didn't have a local group, so I
reached out online. I started to see that there were
other parents that were setting up some blogs around ezema
and food allergies, and I was like, okay, well I
can try and like tell my story and like that's
when I started the blog.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And it was amazing. So it was like journaling, right.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
We created this little like group of parents supporting each other,
and it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I got so many comments about, oh my gosh, this is.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
The same story and I know what you're going through,
and a lot of them were bloggers and some were
just parents.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Like, I just poured my heart out. I did very
little editing. It was really not well done, but I
just like laid it out and people connected with it
and it became kind of like this support group of
other moms and it was amazing and we became friends
and it was really really helpful just to get it
off my chest and to have some other people that
you were listening and that cared and got it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, you're making me also very nostalgic for the early
twenty tens vlogosphere. It was so sweet. There was so
much we didn't know at the time, you know, and
it was like, yeah, this is what the internet is.
We write about our feelings and then we find community.
It's really there's no butt here. It is just beautiful.
That's really cool. So then you kind of took a
(14:26):
pretty big shift and you decided to take a much
more holistic approach. You wanted to see the whole person,
the whole system, the whole child. Talk to me about
what made you want to take that approach and what
that led to.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I didn't grow up that way, that's for sure. That
was kind of a new idea to me. I grew
up on the typical.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
American diet and like all the typical things so holistic,
like homeopath nature path like what is that? Like you
don't know what that is? And is that okay? And
I discovered it because of my mother in law, and
she was she had helped herself over the years with
a lot of different like ailments, especially digestive and so
(15:08):
she from the beginning was like handing me natural creams
and stuff and we tried and like she would keep
bringing things like certain bath products that were natural. You know,
she knew things weren't going well, and she knew that
we didn't really know where to go, and she encouraged
me to go to this natural store near my house,
and I happened to speak to a nature a path
(15:28):
who was working at the store, so I explained what
was going on, and she was like, there's some supplements
you can use to like boost the immune system, because
you know, with ekzema, it's you can have a lot
of different things triggering it. But what a lot of
people don't realize is that you know, food can damage
you can have like a well, now we know leaky
gut is a big contributor of a lot of different
health issues, including egzima. And I just had hurt so
(15:50):
many parents that had had really great results eliminating certain
foods from the diet.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So I've decided to do.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
The top common food allergens and so you eliminate all
those and it's pretty hard, I mean, because you know
they're common things, you know, like wheat, soy, dairy fish, shellfish,
all the nuts, all the all the you know, you know,
there's like and they're in everything, right.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
All the things that you feed kids. Yeah, right now.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
He was three, I think when we started doing the
elimination diets, and it's like, oh, I can't do that
to my child, like all the things he's going through.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
He loves his pasta and.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
His bread, Like how can I Like, what else is
he gonna eat? You know, It's like after all the
things are gone. There were a lot of fresh fruit
and vegetables we cut out too, because I took out
all the red stuff because a lot of people have
trouble with red things.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, this drags out, right.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
This is why it's dangerous to do it when you
don't have a doctor or a nutrition is helping you.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Right, But I did it.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I pulled off the band aid and two days later
he was like ninety eight percent better.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Oh my god, it was really that quick. It was
that wow.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So we added the food back in slowly over a
two week intro period, and several of the foods, probably
like four out of the eight, triggered his skin to react.
So then you have to kind of go back a
few days and wait, take it out again, wait a
few days, and then try the other one. So it's
really long, and that's why it's so hard for a
lot of people. It can be several different foods, it
(17:16):
can be like detergent, it can be like one hundred
different things.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And so you just don't always find them all.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah, and we got lucky figuring that out because it
was like night and day.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Okay, we have finally come to the big moment of
the triggers. I feel like we should add a sound
effect there.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah. Dr oh that was terrible.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
No, no, no, I want the drum roll, I want
the trumpets, I want I don't know, a big fanfare. Okay,
so we have reached it. It is the triggers, Jennifer,
What are Tristan's exema triggers?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
So we figured out birch so birch pollen, which is
just something most people don't think about, pollen being related
to egzema so birch. Then he had wheat, dairy, soy corn,
the red stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
That's why I remember them.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
He didn't really react to nuts that we knew of
at the time. But then because he wasn't I mean dairy,
he started having almond milk and he still was itchy
a little bit, and my mom.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Was like, what's the milk you're giving him now? And
I was like, almond and.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It was that, so we took that out.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So it was just like, oh my gosh, what can
this kid eat? So that was mostly it.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Wheat, dairy, soy corn, Jennifer, that is no joke. That's
like a holy quad yeah of food.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
There's a lot of kids that they're like mortified of
their allergies.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
He would be so scared to like eat his allergy
free cupcake that didn't make his skin flare and they
wouldn't have a reaction. He would literally hide in the
corner at a party and like hide himself and eat it.
And I caught him so many times it just killed me.
I was just like, are you kidding what? This poor child?
Like just breaks your heart to see them like hiding,
They're hiding from everybody.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
It was awful what this is now, I'm I'm just curious.
What were you feeding him?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Oh boy?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Oh, we did things like the Gaps diet and the
Paleo diet and all that stuff. So it was like
heavy on like meats and organ meats and bros and
all the things at it too. And well four year
old at the time loves let me tell you, like
broth drinking broth.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
She was so ahead of his time. Like now I
feel like there are communities that that's what they live by.
You know, he was he was really cutting a new
path for everyone with that.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
But imagine going to a birthday party with like a and.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
You're like, I'm eating broth.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, like yeah, and like your cupcake is not really
a cup this is my broth cakes.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
It's terrible. That's why in the corner.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
All cupcakes are cupcakes. No, we support all cupcakes. That
sounds really complicated, but I can also imagine. I can
imagine that you started feeling relief when you had this
list of triggers that you knew.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And justified because my husband hadn't been supporting me and
now he thanks me. I we'll say, like we he
was very fair and he said, yep, that was that worked.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Like he was skeptical and he had.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
To do it too, so he was not Yeah, he
wanted to support my son, so he didn't want to
do it, but he did and it came out great.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
So Jennifer's redemption is another ault for this episode. And listen,
that's the that's the tale we can write together.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
When did you kind of like start to finally breathe easier.
When did things start to feel manageable?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I mean, I would say as soon as he was
like his skins started healing, like within two days, it
was like, oh my goodness, you feel justified and the
crazy kind of crazy things you feel like you went
through and did and it's like, okay, Like he starts
to skins better, he's itching like not much anymore. I
think part of it becomes habitual, right, So I noticed
(20:59):
it for a while, still kind of like going into
an itch when he wasn't really itchy.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So that was really interesting. I would catch him and
be like, are you actually itchy?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
You know?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And most of the time.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
No, yeh, that's hard, but it's all he knew.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, it becomes a habit. It's they call it the
it's scratch cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I don't know if you've heard that before, but it's
like you you get itchy, so you scratch, and then
you when you scratch, it makes you itchy. So it's
like it's like because you're ecertating your skin. So it's
like a non stop thing. And if that's all he's known.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, So where is Tristan's ezema today?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
He gets flare ups in the spring with birch.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
So like if he goes outside for a run and
he's not wearing pants and his skin is exposed, he
will get super itchy. And then he also still reacts
from the ocean. He would get the same place again
behind the knees and sometimes in the creases here and
he would get really itchy. And what we discovered helps
is creams or like bombs with zinc in it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It created like a barrier he could go.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
In the ocean. It also kind of helped with inflammation.
And usually if we did it every time before he
went in the ocean, he was fine.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
But those are the two that still to this day
bother him. But I would say on the day to
day basis, he does not have egzema. His skin is
smooth and his skin is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh wow, this is such a turnaround. So looking back,
how has this experience changed your family?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So one of the things I like to say about
our experience with egzema is that it was a bit
of a blessing in disguise because it created a healthy
opportunity for our family.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We eat whole foods with simple.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Ingredients and like clean eating, and I think that's been
a huge part of what's helped Tristan with this when
his skin improved all the way up to now right,
like and he's very conscious now of like how he eats,
Like he knows we have fun and we eat JOHNK
everybody does, but like we try as much as possible
to stay.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
On this clean diet.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And I think that's really really helped him and his
body in his immune system fight all of this off
and like recover and be Okay.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, that's so cool. And now I now is really
when the sound effects come in. You started the Ezema
Company to help other families. Obviously the catalyst is what
you went through with Tristan, But was there something that
happened that you were like, I need to make something
(23:22):
for families who are dealing with this.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I just remember being like, you know, during my darkest
point when I called that nurse and I was up
to like two four in the morning buying these crazy products.
I think somebody cheer to link with me in one
of these like deep dark forums you're like finding in
the middle of the night, and you know, one person
had said it worked, it was like worked for them overnight, and.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I was like, oh my gosh, oh whoa.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I got to try this product and I go to
the website and you can't read anything. It's just gibberish
because it's all in check and I don't speak check.
And I was like impossible trying to even navigate, Like
to try to get to the product page was even tough,
you know, because like.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
What do you click?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
God, this is before like right click Google Translate, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So somehow I did it, I don't know how.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
And it arrived and it was just not want want product,
Like nothing exciting. So why is it so hard? Why
is it so hard to find these things? And I
was really overwhelmed, and I had spent thousands of dollars
on skincare. Like you ask anybody with exzema to open
up their like cupboard and their bathrooms. It's full, it's full,
and it's like, we waste so much money. And like
(24:27):
what I've learned with my son and everyone that I've
ever talked to you is like the one thing that
works for you, it is not necessarily going to work
for me. Like everybody's triggers are different, everybody's skin likes
different things, so it's like, well, let's make it easier.
Let's make it easier for parents, because like they shouldn't
have to go through what I went through. Like it
was crazy, it was awful, it was the hardest thing,
(24:48):
and I just I didn't want anybody to have to
go through that. And originally it was for parents, like
it was really heavily built geared towards parents. But funny enough,
like I have, I think the majority of my shoppers
are like adults for their own skin now, so that's great.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, So it's a centralized location for people to find care.
What do you wish people understood about childhood eczema and
also what goes on behind the scenes for the families
dealing with it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I would definitely say, you know, back to that question
about how did you care for yourself?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And I was like, I didn't that. Let's talk about
that because I don't.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's something that's always been really important to me looking back,
and like how I did not treat myself with kindness
and how I did not get the support and so
I needed it. And then it was just it was
tough and it's dark times. You may not be getting
along with your husband, you know, it could be a
lot of fighting nobody's sleeping, and it's like really taking
care of yourself, and I didn't. It was like all
about my son, and I just was like all worried
(25:41):
all the time, making myself sick.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Like that's not the way you can't You can't.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Provide enough support for your child if you don't take
care of yourself. So I eventually did, but also hit
a really dark, dark place, a rock bottom. And I
think that nobody has to go through that. So take
care of yourself and reach out from your physicians, from
friend's family and all of that, because it's really depressing. Yeah,
it's really depressing not be able to help your child
(26:08):
and seeing.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
The court shopper of course. Well, Jennifer, thank you so
much for talking to me today. It was such a
pleasure to get to know you and hear more about
your story.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Thank you. Yeah, I enjoyed the time we had together
and me too. I hope that it helps. I hope
that it helps some people going through this.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'm sure it will. Thank you so much for joining
us for Jennifer's story. There is still so much more
to come this season, but until then, may we care
for ourselves with the same tenderness we give the people
we love. Skin Quarries is a production of Ruby's Studio
(26:45):
from iHeartMedia. Our producer is reem Al mcgrabi, project lead
as Maria Saint Alban and sound designer is Sam Seget.
I'm Dylan Maren. We will see you next time
Speaker 1 (27:00):
You
It destroys your heart to see your child constantly non
stop rubbing, itching, scratching. And we did these things called
wet wrapping, where you take a bath in lukewarm water
and then you wear like slightly damp clothes on the
skin and then a dry layer with moisture underneath. It
can help with itching and the moisture. It's amazing. But
trying to do that with like a two two and
a half year old, like, it's not.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Comfortable, it stinks, it's not fun.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So I'd put on TV and he'd be like a
little zombie and his little wraps staring at the TV,
and like I was, like, what is happening.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
If you're a parent, you want to believe that when
your child is going through something difficult, you'll know what
to do. But when your child is living with an
uncomfortable skin condition, there may not be one clear answer.
Care can become many things. It can become this constant
process of watching, of researching, adjusting, and then wondering whether
(00:55):
you're making the right decision for someone who may not
even have the words to tell you what they're feeling. Hello, friends,
and welcome or welcome back to skin querries. This is
a show about skin, but it's really a show about people.
Because skin health, as we know, doesn't exist in a vacuum.
(01:18):
It shapes how we're seeing. It shapes how we see
ourselves and our experiences of confidence, identity, community, and care.
I'm your host, Dylan Maren. Today we're looking at ezema
through the eyes of a caregiver, because ezema's impact can
(01:40):
extend far beyond the person who is living with it,
and when that person is your child, care can become
all consuming. You're trying to protect their confidence. You're trying
to make the right decisions. You want to help them
feel safe in a body that may not always feel comfortable.
In short, hard My guest today is Jennifer Robert, founder
(02:04):
of the Exema Company and mom to Tristan and Chloe.
Jennifer's son Tristan began experiencing ezema before he was old
enough to explain what he was feeling, which meant Jennifer
was often left trying to interpret it for him. Unlike
so many parents, she was expected to keep making decisions
even when the answers were unclear and nothing seemed to
(02:27):
bring lasting relief. Caring for Tristan became a constant balancing act.
She was trying to keep him comfortable while still letting
him be a kid, making the right decisions for someone
she loved more than anything, and living with the helplessness
of not being able to just take away his discomfort.
(02:48):
But Jennifer met that uncertainty head on. Whenever she could,
she looked for a way forward and eventually created the
kind of resource she wished her own family had when
they were struggling to find answers themselves. Before we really
get into it, let's go back to the start. When
Jennifer first noticed Tristan's skin a few days after he was.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Born, his skin just wasn't that soft, baby smooth skin
that you imagine.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I was a little bit bumpy, it was a little
bit rough in places.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
He had definitely had some baby acne, and it was
just rougher than I thought. And it started to spread
across his body a little bit, like in the creases
the folds of his skin. This is like a common
area to get eggzema, especially in babies. And you just
started to get more rashy, and it seemed a little
bit uncomfortable, a little bit of like a round, kind
of discoyed coin looking egzema on his creases, and the
(03:41):
next baby checkup we went to with the pediatrician, I
asked what it was and she told me it was ezema.
And I had never dealt with ezema, so it was
a bit surprising to me. She just was like, well,
it's really easy to do with You can take topical
cordzone if you want. And I think at that point
we didn't bother because it was pretty mild, but it
was a proper digno. So then we knew what it was.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Did that give peace a little to at least like
know what it was?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, a little bit. We started using skincare on him.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
I mean a baby, you don't necessarily need to use
much or anything in most cases, but in that situation,
we started using some cream that we bought in the store.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
We tried natural.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Bombs and it helped a little bit. That was probably
around he was three months old. I would say around
eighteen months is when things really flared up. And at
that time, the creams and everything just weren't working for him.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Would you mind telling me about that flare up? What
that looked like.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, So, when when he was about eighteen months old,
it started to spread and it got really really red
and rashy.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
He would get it really bad around his wrists.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And he would just like scratch and rub and you
could just tell he was really uncomfortable, and it was
what do we do?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You know, like, I guess it's time.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
At that point, we decided to try the steroids because
it was recommended by the doctors. So we tried the
topple of steroids and it helps for a few and
then you have to, of course come off them for
a time period to give your skin a break from
the medication, and it would come back and it would
be worse every time. At some point, I think it
was around when he was three, we were on a
(05:14):
very strong dose and he had scratched himself really bad
when he was out on the playground and he gave
himself an infection and he just like flew up. It
was just like red, rashy skin everywhere, and he looked
so terrible. You know. You take him out to the
parks and people stare and they look at you and
(05:36):
they all try to like they either avoid you because
they're scared they're going to catch whatever it is, or
they come up to you with a million different ways
to provide advice on different things, to try to help,
you know, and they're doing it out of love and help.
But it's horrible. Yea. You know, you feel like the
worst parent in the world, not being able to help
your child and to have them be in this really
(05:57):
uncomfortable situation and then to have everyone and you feel
very judged.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, very judged, of course. Of course. So Tristan is
like a baby when this is first happening. Babies famously
don't speak, can't speak. So how did it feel to
be caring for this person who couldn't really articulate what
they were going through? What did that feel like as
(06:22):
a parent? How are you doing emotionally as a parent?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh? I totally ignored myself? Are you kidding? That's the
worst possible thing.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You do, which everyone says the smart thing to do
is just fullygnore yourself. Don't put your oxygen mask on
at all. Oh I know, tell me how you were
not putting on your oxygen mask.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, I was, you know, beside myself with worry.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
It was really really hard to feel like, how do
we help this little person that I am responsible for
and that I love, and like I just can't bear
to see them suffer. I was like staying up till
two and three in the morning researching products to help him,
and like contacting people and like lifelines, just throwing them
out and buying products from other countries. The other thing
(07:07):
that really was hard is as his skin got worse
and worse, and we were trying to figure out what
to do.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I have a husband.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
At one point I started questioning the topical steroids because
at some point you're like, well, how long do I
continue this? He's like two and we're like one of
the maximum doses for topical you know. I started to
get really worried about that. So my husband and I
started to argue about his treatment and his care, which
I'm sure a lot of people can you know, also
can relate to this when they have a child that's sick.
(07:36):
In any way, you don't always agree with your spouse
and like who decides? And I was like a bull
with this. I went after it and I just was
I told my husband I did not think it was
the answer.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
My intuition was telling me it was just not right
for him.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I think it can help a lot of people, but
for my son, something else was going on, and my
husband was very upset, and so I.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Kind of was like, well, let's try it my way
for a little while.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, your way is.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Not working anymore, you know. And that was hard for him.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And there was a time where I just didn't I
didn't know if we were going to stay married. I
was so like, couldn't believe he was on that side
and I was on this side. And I was like,
this would be easier if I left him and ran
away with a child to like do this. Yeah, I
don't need with all the stress going on, I need
his support.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And that was really hard. I felt like, who is
this person that doesn't agree with me?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah. It's also one of those tricky moments where you're
just like two parents and what you undeniably share in
common is that you want what's best for your son. Yeah,
And it is destabilizing when two people who only want
the best for the same person can disagree about that.
I totally get that. So I'm so aware that I'm
(08:51):
asking you to relive some really really hard times, But
can you share with me, like, what was like the
lowest point?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I would say it was when Tristram was probably two
two and a half and I had just had a
second baby, so you know, second babies don't sleep very well.
Then I had my son that wasn't sleeping well, and
my husband and I were taking turns sleeping with him
because we had to hold his arms down so he
didn't scratch himself to bleeding and stain his sheets and
(09:21):
rip his skin open in the night. So we were
taking turns, and I just wasn't, you know, I've been
getting enough sleep. His skin was it had finally reached
it was pretty much full body, and it was coming up.
It was starting to show in his face and he
was completely covered and he looked like a bird victim.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And he was suffering. And so we're suffering because.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You just it destroys your heart to see your child
like constantly non stop rubbing, itching, scratching. And we did
these things called wet wrapping, where you take a bath
and lukewarm water and then you wear like slightly damp
clothes on the skin and then a dry layer with
moisture underneath, and trying to do that. It's like a
great intense therapy when your skin is like horrific, right,
(10:00):
it can help so much.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It can help with itching and the moisture, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
But trying to do that with like a two two
and a half year old, it's not comfortable.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It stinks, like it's not fun.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
So I'd put on TV and he'd be like a
little zombie in his little rap staring at the TV
and like I was like, what is happening?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
How is this going on?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And you have to do it every like two to
four hours with a newborn, and like fighting with my
husband and like late night trying to figure out what
to do for your child. It was it was really hard.
It was really, really, really hard. So that was my
low point. I called remember calling this like nurse someone
had recommended it some like exzema clinic.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I'm in Montreal.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
This is in like San Francisco, And I was like
crying to her. I was like what do I do?
I can't see you, Like is there any way you
can see us? Can we come see you? Like can
you give me some advice? On the phone, Like I
don't know what to do. Nothing's working. And I had
a closet full of skincare that you've tried, and like
half of them burn him because it's like a lot
of the lotion and creams if you're dealing with like
(11:01):
open skin, you know, if you have a cut and
you put on anything like a lotion that's got any
bit of alcohol of any kind, it would burn.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So he's like running away.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
From me half the time and I'm like trying to
put on cream.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And this is on top of normal parenting. Yeah right,
you know.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Oh, this isn't even getting to all the challenges that. Yeah,
come wow, okay, this is a lot. How were you
managing his symptoms day to day?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So when things got really severe, we had those mittens
and those were really helpful. They're like sleeves, so they
can't take them off easily. So we travel with those mittens.
He would wear those at night, he would wear them
in the day when he needed them. He gets this
like he would zone out in his eyes. I called
it like his itch trance, you know, And so it's like,
oh my gosh, whip out the mittens, put them on,
and then just like you know, he can't play super
(11:53):
well with them. So it's a little weird and awkward,
and like his fun time at the park starts to
not be as fun. Yeah, we were doing wet wrapping
on a cane as not too much, because it actually,
weirdly enough, can dry out your skin if you do
it too much, which is counterintuitive, but whatever, it is.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
What it is.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
You're holding all of these rules in your head at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Oh gosh, yes, and we were definitely doing you know,
morning skincare, afternoon skincare, evening skincare. Yeah, So chasing him
around with skincare is like the main thing, and then
just following him around all the time, watching him so
it doesn't scratch.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I can't tell you how many times I would say,
don't scratch.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Don't scratch like that, and then it's like also is
like a kid developing normal like instincts, which is like
you both listen to your parent and you also want
to disobey your parent in all the normal ways. So
it's like, if you're saying, don't scratch, you know, guess
what I want to do, right, No, I want to scratch.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah. And it's a reminder too, you know, like oh yeah,
like oh scratch, Oh I could scratch right right.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
It's in the way that a smoke and anti smoking
commercial some say is a smoking commercial. Yeah, this is
your no scratch PSA.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
This sounds like a very lonely position for you as
a parent. How did you channel this into.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Something Well, I didn't have a local group, so I
reached out online. I started to see that there were
other parents that were setting up some blogs around ezema
and food allergies, and I was like, okay, well I
can try and like tell my story and like that's
when I started the blog.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And it was amazing. So it was like journaling, right.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
We created this little like group of parents supporting each other,
and it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I got so many comments about, oh my gosh, this is.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
The same story and I know what you're going through,
and a lot of them were bloggers and some were
just parents.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Like, I just poured my heart out. I did very
little editing. It was really not well done, but I
just like laid it out and people connected with it
and it became kind of like this support group of
other moms and it was amazing and we became friends
and it was really really helpful just to get it
off my chest and to have some other people that
you were listening and that cared and got it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, you're making me also very nostalgic for the early
twenty tens vlogosphere. It was so sweet. There was so
much we didn't know at the time, you know, and
it was like, yeah, this is what the internet is.
We write about our feelings and then we find community.
It's really there's no butt here. It is just beautiful.
That's really cool. So then you kind of took a
(14:26):
pretty big shift and you decided to take a much
more holistic approach. You wanted to see the whole person,
the whole system, the whole child. Talk to me about
what made you want to take that approach and what
that led to.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I didn't grow up that way, that's for sure. That
was kind of a new idea to me. I grew
up on the typical.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
American diet and like all the typical things so holistic,
like homeopath nature path like what is that? Like you
don't know what that is? And is that okay? And
I discovered it because of my mother in law, and
she was she had helped herself over the years with
a lot of different like ailments, especially digestive and so
(15:08):
she from the beginning was like handing me natural creams
and stuff and we tried and like she would keep
bringing things like certain bath products that were natural. You know,
she knew things weren't going well, and she knew that
we didn't really know where to go, and she encouraged
me to go to this natural store near my house,
and I happened to speak to a nature a path
(15:28):
who was working at the store, so I explained what
was going on, and she was like, there's some supplements
you can use to like boost the immune system, because
you know, with ekzema, it's you can have a lot
of different things triggering it. But what a lot of
people don't realize is that you know, food can damage
you can have like a well, now we know leaky
gut is a big contributor of a lot of different
health issues, including egzima. And I just had hurt so
(15:50):
many parents that had had really great results eliminating certain
foods from the diet.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So I've decided to do.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
The top common food allergens and so you eliminate all
those and it's pretty hard, I mean, because you know
they're common things, you know, like wheat, soy, dairy fish, shellfish,
all the nuts, all the all the you know, you know,
there's like and they're in everything, right.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
All the things that you feed kids. Yeah, right now.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
He was three, I think when we started doing the
elimination diets, and it's like, oh, I can't do that
to my child, like all the things he's going through.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
He loves his pasta and.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
His bread, Like how can I Like, what else is
he gonna eat? You know, It's like after all the
things are gone. There were a lot of fresh fruit
and vegetables we cut out too, because I took out
all the red stuff because a lot of people have
trouble with red things.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, this drags out, right.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
This is why it's dangerous to do it when you
don't have a doctor or a nutrition is helping you.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Right, But I did it.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I pulled off the band aid and two days later
he was like ninety eight percent better.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Oh my god, it was really that quick. It was
that wow.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So we added the food back in slowly over a
two week intro period, and several of the foods, probably
like four out of the eight, triggered his skin to react.
So then you have to kind of go back a
few days and wait, take it out again, wait a
few days, and then try the other one. So it's
really long, and that's why it's so hard for a
lot of people. It can be several different foods, it
(17:16):
can be like detergent, it can be like one hundred
different things.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And so you just don't always find them all.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah, and we got lucky figuring that out because it
was like night and day.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Okay, we have finally come to the big moment of
the triggers. I feel like we should add a sound
effect there.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah. Dr oh that was terrible.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
No, no, no, I want the drum roll, I want
the trumpets, I want I don't know, a big fanfare. Okay,
so we have reached it. It is the triggers, Jennifer,
What are Tristan's exema triggers?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
So we figured out birch so birch pollen, which is
just something most people don't think about, pollen being related
to egzema so birch. Then he had wheat, dairy, soy corn,
the red stuff.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
That's why I remember them.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
He didn't really react to nuts that we knew of
at the time. But then because he wasn't I mean dairy,
he started having almond milk and he still was itchy
a little bit, and my mom.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Was like, what's the milk you're giving him now? And
I was like, almond and.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It was that, so we took that out.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Whoa.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
So it was just like, oh my gosh, what can
this kid eat? So that was mostly it.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Wheat, dairy, soy corn, Jennifer, that is no joke. That's
like a holy quad yeah of food.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
There's a lot of kids that they're like mortified of
their allergies.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
He would be so scared to like eat his allergy
free cupcake that didn't make his skin flare and they
wouldn't have a reaction. He would literally hide in the
corner at a party and like hide himself and eat it.
And I caught him so many times it just killed me.
I was just like, are you kidding what? This poor child?
Like just breaks your heart to see them like hiding,
They're hiding from everybody.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
It was awful what this is now, I'm I'm just curious.
What were you feeding him?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Oh boy?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Oh, we did things like the Gaps diet and the
Paleo diet and all that stuff. So it was like
heavy on like meats and organ meats and bros and
all the things at it too. And well four year
old at the time loves let me tell you, like
broth drinking broth.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
She was so ahead of his time. Like now I
feel like there are communities that that's what they live by.
You know, he was he was really cutting a new
path for everyone with that.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
But imagine going to a birthday party with like a and.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
You're like, I'm eating broth.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Yeah, like yeah, and like your cupcake is not really
a cup this is my broth cakes.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
It's terrible. That's why in the corner.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
All cupcakes are cupcakes. No, we support all cupcakes. That
sounds really complicated, but I can also imagine. I can
imagine that you started feeling relief when you had this
list of triggers that you knew.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And justified because my husband hadn't been supporting me and
now he thanks me. I we'll say, like we he
was very fair and he said, yep, that was that worked.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Like he was skeptical and he had.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
To do it too, so he was not Yeah, he
wanted to support my son, so he didn't want to
do it, but he did and it came out great.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
So Jennifer's redemption is another ault for this episode. And listen,
that's the that's the tale we can write together.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
When did you kind of like start to finally breathe easier.
When did things start to feel manageable?
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I mean, I would say as soon as he was
like his skins started healing, like within two days, it
was like, oh my goodness, you feel justified and the
crazy kind of crazy things you feel like you went
through and did and it's like, okay, Like he starts
to skins better, he's itching like not much anymore. I
think part of it becomes habitual, right, So I noticed
(20:59):
it for a while, still kind of like going into
an itch when he wasn't really itchy.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So that was really interesting. I would catch him and
be like, are you actually itchy?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
You know?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And most of the time.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
No, yeh, that's hard, but it's all he knew.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, it becomes a habit. It's they call it the
it's scratch cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I don't know if you've heard that before, but it's
like you you get itchy, so you scratch, and then
you when you scratch, it makes you itchy. So it's
like it's like because you're ecertating your skin. So it's
like a non stop thing. And if that's all he's known.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, So where is Tristan's ezema today?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
He gets flare ups in the spring with birch.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
So like if he goes outside for a run and
he's not wearing pants and his skin is exposed, he
will get super itchy. And then he also still reacts
from the ocean. He would get the same place again
behind the knees and sometimes in the creases here and
he would get really itchy. And what we discovered helps
is creams or like bombs with zinc in it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It created like a barrier he could go.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
In the ocean. It also kind of helped with inflammation.
And usually if we did it every time before he
went in the ocean, he was fine.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
But those are the two that still to this day
bother him. But I would say on the day to
day basis, he does not have egzema. His skin is
smooth and his skin is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh wow, this is such a turnaround. So looking back,
how has this experience changed your family?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So one of the things I like to say about
our experience with egzema is that it was a bit
of a blessing in disguise because it created a healthy
opportunity for our family.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We eat whole foods with simple.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Ingredients and like clean eating, and I think that's been
a huge part of what's helped Tristan with this when
his skin improved all the way up to now right,
like and he's very conscious now of like how he eats,
Like he knows we have fun and we eat JOHNK
everybody does, but like we try as much as possible
to stay.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
On this clean diet.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And I think that's really really helped him and his
body in his immune system fight all of this off
and like recover and be Okay.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, that's so cool. And now I now is really
when the sound effects come in. You started the Ezema
Company to help other families. Obviously the catalyst is what
you went through with Tristan, But was there something that
happened that you were like, I need to make something
(23:22):
for families who are dealing with this.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I just remember being like, you know, during my darkest
point when I called that nurse and I was up
to like two four in the morning buying these crazy products.
I think somebody cheer to link with me in one
of these like deep dark forums you're like finding in
the middle of the night, and you know, one person
had said it worked, it was like worked for them overnight, and.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I was like, oh my gosh, oh whoa.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I got to try this product and I go to
the website and you can't read anything. It's just gibberish
because it's all in check and I don't speak check.
And I was like impossible trying to even navigate, Like
to try to get to the product page was even tough,
you know, because like.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
What do you click?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
God, this is before like right click Google Translate, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So somehow I did it, I don't know how.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
And it arrived and it was just not want want product,
Like nothing exciting. So why is it so hard? Why
is it so hard to find these things? And I
was really overwhelmed, and I had spent thousands of dollars
on skincare. Like you ask anybody with exzema to open
up their like cupboard and their bathrooms. It's full, it's full,
and it's like, we waste so much money. And like
(24:27):
what I've learned with my son and everyone that I've
ever talked to you is like the one thing that
works for you, it is not necessarily going to work
for me. Like everybody's triggers are different, everybody's skin likes
different things, so it's like, well, let's make it easier.
Let's make it easier for parents, because like they shouldn't
have to go through what I went through. Like it
was crazy, it was awful, it was the hardest thing,
(24:48):
and I just I didn't want anybody to have to
go through that. And originally it was for parents, like
it was really heavily built geared towards parents. But funny enough,
like I have, I think the majority of my shoppers
are like adults for their own skin now, so that's great.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, So it's a centralized location for people to find care.
What do you wish people understood about childhood eczema and
also what goes on behind the scenes for the families
dealing with it.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I would definitely say, you know, back to that question
about how did you care for yourself?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And I was like, I didn't that. Let's talk about
that because I don't.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
That's something that's always been really important to me looking back,
and like how I did not treat myself with kindness
and how I did not get the support and so
I needed it. And then it was just it was
tough and it's dark times. You may not be getting
along with your husband, you know, it could be a
lot of fighting nobody's sleeping, and it's like really taking
care of yourself, and I didn't. It was like all
about my son, and I just was like all worried
(25:41):
all the time, making myself sick.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Like that's not the way you can't You can't.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Provide enough support for your child if you don't take
care of yourself. So I eventually did, but also hit
a really dark, dark place, a rock bottom. And I
think that nobody has to go through that. So take
care of yourself and reach out from your physicians, from
friend's family and all of that, because it's really depressing. Yeah,
it's really depressing not be able to help your child
(26:08):
and seeing.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
The court shopper of course. Well, Jennifer, thank you so
much for talking to me today. It was such a
pleasure to get to know you and hear more about
your story.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Thank you. Yeah, I enjoyed the time we had together
and me too. I hope that it helps. I hope
that it helps some people going through this.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'm sure it will. Thank you so much for joining
us for Jennifer's story. There is still so much more
to come this season, but until then, may we care
for ourselves with the same tenderness we give the people
we love. Skin Quarries is a production of Ruby's Studio
(26:45):
from iHeartMedia. Our producer is reem Al mcgrabi, project lead
as Maria Saint Alban and sound designer is Sam Seget.
I'm Dylan Maren. We will see you next time
Speaker 1 (27:00):
You
Host
Dylan Marron
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