Blog Rules and Sponsorship

I just heard a news story on the radio that the FTC has approved new rules applying to blogs that review or recommend products in relationship to commercial activity and potential sponsorships.

I don’t know if I have to make a statement if I DON’T have any sponsorships, but I’ll restate it just in case:

Solveeczema.org and Solve Eczema’s Blog are entirely volunteer and non-profit.  I have never received any payment for listing, suggesting, reviewing, or linking to any product.  I have never even received any product samples, despite their having been occasionally offered!  (Wait, I have received some free samples at the local farmer’s market, but I have not listed that vendor’s products on my site or blog — though I may, once I have a chance to properly try them out.  If so, I will comply with rules to state that they were samples, but it will not affect my review in any case.)  All of the soaps on Solveeczema’s Blog Master List, for example, were purchased by me prior to my trying them.

Although, Jill Schoff credits Solveeczema.org as the inspiration for her book Green Up Your Cleanup,  I did not receive a free copy of the book (and I haven’t asked for one, small press authors have to pay for copies they give out from their own pockets — but I will unapologetically hint that I would happily accept one if offered!)

To be absolutely nitpicky about disclosure:  one of the soap flake makers I list on Solveeczema.org made a donation when I asked on Solve Eczema’s Blog to help defray expenses to keep my site online — which helped and for which I was grateful — but it did not in any way change my recommendation for the product or my site.  It was a similar order of magnitude as private donations from parent-users.  I had been recommending that maker for years already, without any contact with them and I personally actually use a different brand of soap flakes (which is clear on my site).  To this day, I have not tried that maker’s products, but based on the underlying issues outlined on Solveeczema.org, I will continue to recommend them — especially since I have heard from parents who have used that maker’s soap flakes in their eczema removal process and I have heard only good feedback about them.

Not that I haven’t considered monetizing the site.  There is a lot of money to be made from Google ads and sponsored links, especially where allergy and eczema are concerned.  I frankly still mostly pay for the expenses of this endeavor out of my own pocket and have thought a lot over the years since it began how I could monetize it so I could afford to do more with it to help far more people.  If I ever monetized in any way, it would be clearly announced and spelled out on my site — regardless of the FCC and their rules.

Lastly, in case people aren’t aware, per WordPress rules, WordPress.com bloggers are not even allowed to have sponsored links or ads, it’s a condition of getting the benefit of their free blog software.

Elephant Pharmacy closes doors

With all the business shakeups and closings of this financial crisis, I suppose no one is immune.  I will miss Elephant Pharmacy the most.   Yesterday they closed their doors and declared bankruptcy.

Where are the angel investors?  This is an amazing business concept.  Very loyal customers, judging by the local buzz.

I found most of my bar soap products here, including the one we use now for showering, unscented Sappo Hill.

And it was a great traditional PHARMACY, too.  If the pharmacy side couldn’t keep the business afloat, we are indeed in hard times…

Happy New Year!

Thankfully (but unfortunately only after three-and-a-half years of paperwork nightmare), the medical insurance matter was resolved (at least, the care covered) around Thanksgiving.  For the first time in as long as I can remember, my family’s holiday wasn’t completely dominated by medical paperwork.

To further capitalize on this breather, I am hoping to redesign and update the Solveeczema web site this spring.  And finally get around to answering my email more promptly.  Thanks so much for bearing with me.

And a huge Thank You again to those who made donations that defrayed the cost of the site enough so that I could renew the domain names and keep it going.  As promised, this week I will take down the donations button.  At some point, I will add one to the Solveeczema site proper, but probably not until I am able to apply for some kind of non-profit status.   

I am still looking for an angel investor who might like to sponsor a clinical study.  If that might be you, please contact me through the links on the solveeczema web site home page.

I wish you all a Happy, Healthy, and Eczema-Free New Year!

A.J. Lumsdaine

Score Another One for Miele

I have a washing machine again!  Thanks to Miele for working with me the way they did.  I know of no other appliance company that offers this level of customer service, consistently, as they do.  As they have over the years.  I have a $50 wedding ring and a grainy, 15-year-old t.v.  I clip coupons and buy milk by the case to save 10%.  But this Mercedes of washing machines is definitely worth every penny (many, many pennies).

Autumn Eczema Redux

With summer weather waning, and dry autumn air posing the usual seasonal problem for people with eczema, hits on solveeczema.org and this blog are up.  It’s time once again for me to pull out the winter clothing, the Aquaphor, and my post on this issue from last year, Autumn Eczema.

An excerpt:

Summertime humidity can be such a help to those who are in the problem-solving stages, or who have a baby whose exposures are very difficult to control. Unfortunately, when autumn rolls around, and the heat comes on indoors – drying the air – people with detergent-reactive eczema become more susceptible to breakouts from lower levels of detergent.

I have in the past told friends to write a note about this in their calendars and not to panic if they see new breakouts at this time – they just have to be a little more vigilant to bring detergent exposure down to a lower level for awhile. (Usually they forget and panic anyway, but soon sort it out with just a little more vigilance.)

As I point out on my site, absent detergents that increase skin permeability, even dry air will not result in eczema in susceptible individuals. If you’ve gotten lax like we always did over the summer, now might be a good time to increase vigilance about exposures to prevent those autumn breakouts. (Or, wait until the heat comes on and just remember not to panic…)

Washing Machine Blues

So, for the second time in a year, both of my Miele washing machines failed within a few weeks of each other.

Yep, you got it.  I have two front-loading, high-efficiency washing machines.  For a long time, they were the most expensive things we owned, including the cars.  I thought they were worth it – energy efficient, clean well, can wash anything from wool sweaters to dirty gym socks, so little wear and tear on clothing, and so worth it because of the eczema.  But the repair problems…  

The last time they failed, it was the water valves in both machines.  This time both failed catastrophically.  One somehow got a nickel stuck on edge between the drum and the drum enclosure.  It squashed the nickel down and punched in the drum all the way around.  (You’ve got to see this – I’ll try to upload a photo of the nickel later this weekend.)  

We called for repair, but it wasn’t the company’s fault (though I am bothered by the fact that this machine design allows coins to get in there if they could do this kind of damage).  My husband spent a day fixing the drum, only to find that there are other broken parts.  The other machine had a catastrophic failure – the bearings were replaced within the last two years, but somehow, it’s all gone bad again.  The belt behind the drum has practically vaporized all over the place.  

Now I have no working washing machine.  This was a bad time for this to happen.

One of the machines is a stacking machine, and the dryer works just fine.  But we can’t afford another Miele washer, and we don’t have space NOT to have the stacking unit.  

Miele has the most incredible repair department and really stands behind their products, but we can’t afford to repair or replace these machines.  If anyone has recommendations for a good value in washing machine that doesn’t cost so much, I would love to hear them!  Please send email through the solveeczema.org site.  Thanks!

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who made donations recently!  The donations defrayed the cost enough that I could afford renewal for 3 more years for both .org and .com domain names (plus URL forwarding from my existing ISP).

Also, thank you to TJ and DJ in NZ – I hope you get this message – my emails to you have bounced. It was kind of you to send support from halfway across the planet!

Please help keep Solveeczema going

Well, this is really frustrating. I spent weeks composing a letter to send out to people who had contacted me through the web site. To ask for support for the site, and to direct people to sign up for a Yahoogroup in order to send out occasional (like once a year) announcements about Solveeczema. Some of those people had even offered support in the past, but I didn’t take anyone up on it then.

Well, most of the things I sent out – via a Yahoogroups invite – bounced, most likely because of the word “eczema” and the bulk mailing. I really cannot figure out how to send email to a large number of people. I was trying the Yahoogroup in the first place because it was becoming impossible to send info (to people who had asked) from my account.

When I started Solveeczema, I just paid for the domain names and forwarding myself. I paid for printing and postage to mail the info to people who read about it in newsletters but did not have Internet access themselves. I have even bought soap products for a few moms who could not afford them. But the aforementioned problems with Blue Shield have been a strain on my family’s resources and time, and will probably do so long into the future.

I really do need the help to keep Solveeczema on the air, so to speak. It does not have to be much. I have enough donations to renew for a year, but as you can see, I’m really not much of an online fundraiser and can’t see doing this again next year!

If this has helped you – and by some miracle you get wind of this through the blog (because I don’t seem to be able to email the list of people who contacted me through the site to save my life) – please consider a small donation to keep it going for the next person. The “donate” button on this blog goes directly to Paypal, a secure site.

Please forgive me for grousing, I am feeling a little low and ineffectual at the moment …

If you sign up for the free email subscription…

If you sign up for the free email subscription, you will get an email every time I make a new post to Solveeczema’s blog.  I am so sorry, I just really cannot figure out how to make the subject line of the emails be the title of the new posts!  So every emails says “Solve Eczema’s Blog” in the subject line.  Please bear with me, I’ll get it worked out at some point…

Temporary Pledge Drive

I am experimenting with a temporary donations button on this blog – and hopefully soon, on the solveeczema website – to ask for support to renew the domain names and transfer the site to a better web hosting service in a few months.

If possible, I also hope to afford to devote more time to updating the site, answering emails and questions, and maintaining the blog on a more regular basis. (In the interest of full disclosure, I will not be able to spend full-time with this no matter what the level of support. But I will be able to do far more than the small, spare moments I can offer now.)

This is a small blog; small donations are welcome!

If, however, someone has the means and desire to be a major angel, I would add the following wish list:

1) Funds to subscribe to relevant online dermatology and microbiology scientific journals – to help me finish a scientific article sooner.

2) Support a study! In the past year, more than one doctor has offered to help conduct a study. I have had little ability to follow up. (If you can fund a study, please write to me through the “Feedback” heading/link on my home page. Rather than donating to me directly – solveeczema.org is a simple volunteer effort, not an official non-profit, so donations are not tax deductible – we could arrange for you to donate to the institution where the study would be conducted, where it would more likely be deductible.)

I have to admit that I am not very comfortable asking for donations, I hope it does not make my readers uncomfortable. The web site needs more than I have been able to give to it; I would like to do much more.

When I solved my son’s eczema, I was unable to keep up with questions and requests for help from friends and acquaintances, so I wrote a few articles. When the articles were published, I was inundated with requests for information, so I put up the solveeczema web site.

I can see from feedback that the site is doing a tremendous amount of good. I hear from people all over the world that the information helped them understand and eliminate a child’s or their own eczema. More than one doctor has told me that they refer patients to the information. I can see that this solution is consistent with a plethora of existing scientific literature.

I will take the whole thing to the next step sooner or later – a scientific paper, a study, etc. – thus I am experimenting with donations to see if I can make that happen “sooner.”