Please check out my full Story and Rewards for donating to my campaign here:
First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to read my campaign story!
My name is Terry Alabata, a Bay Area native and Filipina-American from San Francisco, California, USA. For almost 30 years, I have lived with a very painful and debilitating chronic skin condition called eczema or atopic dermatitis. The excruciating and severe pain of living with highly reactive skin constantly tender, inflamed rashes as a High Sensitive Person (HSP) from childhoood often left me feeling stuck, paralyzed, and confused. It seemed as if I was always highly reactive to so many things that triggered eczema from all angles internally and externally.
My Backstory With Eczema
I’m obsessed with skin. And healing eczema rashes! Every since I was 5 years old, I have suffered from eczema. I know all too well the pain of full body flare-ups, tenderness, cracking, scaliness, oozing, and bleeding from this hypersensitive experience. I often felt very helpless and weak because of my strong sensitivities to so many things. The pain was often so overwhelming that a few times I had questioned my own existence and contemplated suicide. All Western dermatologists (who have absolutely no experience or empathy with what it’s like to live with eczema) did was prescribe me various forms of steroids that never completely healed me or even improved my skin for the long-term. Alternative or eco-friendly products were never considered or discussed as options to steroids.
After 15 years of consistent daily steroid use, in 2004 I had a breakthrough. I was sophomore in college at San Francisco State University and my godfather had passed away due to health issues. It was the first death in the family that I had experienced and I did not take it well at all. The grief and stress struck me so deeply that my body went into full body shock. From head to almost my toes I was completely covered in deep, huge, tender, cracked rashes that would bleed and ooze constantly everyday. I would wake up every morning stuck to my pillowcases and bedsheets. I slathered on thick layers of the strongest steroid ointments I had at the time and no matter how much I put on, my rashes persisted and got more and more irritated and swollen. And because of this experience, I had my breakthrough. And the breakthrough was realizing that steroids had never and WOULD NEVER heal me! It was all a scam! A scam by the medical industry to keep me pumping cash into the steroid industry. It was all business, not medicine. That was just an illusion.
I would have to find my own way out, my own light at the end of the tunnel–without the help of Western doctors.
So to help myself save myself and my sanity, I would get super nerdy and start researching products that were safe for sensitive skin. Over time, I found some winners, but also soon discovered that even products that were labeled “safe for sensitive skin” or “safe for eczema” like those from Cerave, Aveeno, and Lubriderm didn’t always help and sometimes still aggravated my skin with other filler ingredients like mineral oil, parabens or alcohol.
For the past 14 years, it’s been like being possessed and I can’t stop myself from learning every little bit I possibly can about how the skin works and how to heal it as much as possible. This has sent me down a rabbit hole of learning what the core of healing any imbalance even remotely related to eczema can be. I will literally spend hours looking up ingredients at a store that I’m not familiar with for a new product just to make sure it’s absolutely safe as I can discern it to be. I’ve become quite a skin and cosmetic ingredient nerd.
Why Donate To My Campaign?
Ever since starting my Eczema Phoenix Youtube Channel (www.eczemaphoenix.com ) last year, I have had many people come to me for help or refer people with eczema to me for experienced guidance on how to cope with it mentally and recommendations for skincare products.
If I can help even just one person with eczema heal and improve their eczema in any incremental way, I feel like my life’s purpose is complete. That is one less person who feels alone. One less eczema sufferer who will consider or possibly commit suicide.
Full Story and Rewards for donating to my campaign here:
Thank you for reading!
If you like this content and would like to support the channel, you may send donations to:
Paypal: paypal.me/teresaalabata
Venmo: @Teresa-Alabata
Cash App: $TeresaAlabata
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Much appreciation and gratitude for stopping by! Stay safe, healthy and protected!
💜,
Teresa “Terry” Alabata
Eczema Phoenix
Sensitive Skin Advocate & Educator
Find me on Instagram and Twitter @eczemaphoenix
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