Hi, I’m Abby.

Where it all started

I was born with eczema. As a kid I was seeing doctors almost every week for steroid creams, cortisone and medications, and most of them barely helped.

When I was 15 and living in Hong Kong, it suddenly became so severe that it covered almost my whole body. I’d wake up to blood and dead skin flakes all over my bed. My legs looked burnt. Walking hurt because of the eczema on my knees and joints, washing my face hurt, and my whole body stung in the shower.

My doctor said it was one of the worst cases they had ever seen. It got so bad that I thought I should be hospitalized, and I wasn’t sure I would live past 18.

It wasn’t just my skin that was suffering. I was severely depressed, and I had a lot of suicidal thoughts. In those early years, I cried almost every day walking home from school, and it only got darker each time I lost everything.

Thankfully, that’s not how my story ended.

Some of the photos below show severe eczema.

Even high school wasn’t spared. I was so embarrassed to have eczema as a teenager, with everyone seeing it at prom.

I was afraid to see people and afraid of what they thought of me. I couldn’t wear t-shirts in the summer heat. I kept praying for it to go away.

The flare that changed everything

Strangely, my skin always calmed down when I spent summers in North America. When I moved back to North America for university at 17, it settled on its own, but nothing had changed underneath. At 25, it came back, as severe as ever.

Everyone around me was worried: my family, my friends and my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband. My workplace even gave me unlimited sick days and work-from-home days because they could see how hard it was. There were even times I had to take short-term disability leave, just to be able to sustain myself.

Losing everything, and starting over

There were times when I lost everything and had to rebuild my life from nothing.

My skin always got a lot better whenever I was in North America, and every time I moved back to Hong Kong, it flared. After university, I tried once again to move back home. But within about two months, I lost:

• My very first job
• The guy I was dating
• My best friend
• My home in Hong Kong, because my skin kept flaring whenever I lived there

So I moved back to North America, away from my family, where my skin could finally calm down. On top of everything I had lost, I became extremely depressed.

I remember renting a living room for $700 a month, with no family around me and no job, having to start all over again.

My skin was raw, my heart was heavy, and I felt completely alone. Some nights I honestly didn’t know how I was going to keep going.

What finally helped

I finally saw a naturopath and a nutritionist, who helped me look at what might be behind my flares: nutrient gaps, food sensitivities, my gut, and the products I was using every day.

Over the next few months, I switched to gentle, natural products, took supplements, did a detox and completely changed how I ate. My body had become so sensitive that foods like sugar, wheat and sauces would make my skin tingle and flare.

Within about two months, my skin changed more than it had in over a decade of steroids and medication. It took about another year for most of my skin to settle, and longer for that last stubborn bit. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t a straight line, but it gave me hope again.

The naturopaths helped me to a certain extent, but I soon realized it was so much more than just food. That realization led me down a 10-year journey, and I learned far more along the way than anything the naturopaths had taught me.

Eczema isn’t just about food, or candida on its own. The real drivers often run much deeper, and along the way I discovered at least 15 root causes that can keep eczema going.

Where I am today

Today I can eat normal foods again, and my skin is nowhere near where it used to be. I still look after my body. When I’m stressed, not sleeping or not eating well, a little eczema can still show up.

That experience is why I became a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and started Eczema Conquerors.

When my son went through it too

Years later, after giving birth, my eczema came back harder than ever. At the same time, my son went through severe, weeping eczema of his own.

I struggled with postpartum depression. It was one of the darkest seasons of my life. I hid myself away and isolated myself from almost everyone, because I didn’t want anyone to see me, or my skin, like that.

It was devastating to be going through a flare at the same time as my son.

Caring for my baby while my own skin was raw, and watching him go through the same pain I knew so well, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through.

I had already gone through so much pain with my own skin.

It sent me into severe depression.

Going through it as a parent made me even more committed to helping families feel less alone.

It also sent me on an even deeper research journey. I realized there was so much more to learn, because many of the practitioners and naturopaths I worked with hit a limitation. That taught me to go deeper, to find what would really help.

Along the way I found even more root causes, and today our team and I specialize in helping kids with eczema too.

A special thank you to Jesus, my husband and my family for walking with me through it all.

Hear my story in my own words

Some things are easier to say than to write. In this video, I share the hardest parts of my journey: the pain, the turning points, and how I slowly found my way back to myself.

My storyFrom hating my skin
to healing itWatch the video

Watch: From Hating My Skin to Healing It, My Story