About Us

DEBORAH MASON - MANAGING DIRECTOR & WEB SITE MANAGER FOR TALKECZEMA

My name is Deborah Mason and this web site was created by me in October 2000. I live in Hampshire, UK, with my husband Mark and two daughters Sophie who is 11 and Alice who is 9 years old.

I am allergic to tree pollen and suffer with hay fever throughout late Spring/early Summer. My symptoms are restricted to very sore, runny sticky eyes. I can't wear make up when I am suffering with the symptoms I live permanently in dark glasses. Very fetching! I suffer with mild eczema, mainly contact induced, but my main inspiration for setting up the TalkEczema web site came from my daughter Alice. At 5 months old she developed severe atopic eczema following a short spell in hospital for suspected meningitis. Fortunately it was only a very bad viral infection, but the drip used to hydrate her contained an antibiotic which I believe was responsible for triggering her eczema. During this time, Alice developed several allergies including intolerance to milk, eggs and pink fish. She also displayed symptoms associated wtih asthma, and still suffers with allergic rhinitis today.

But it was her chronic eczema that made both Alice's life, and our family life, hard to handle.

At the time we couldn't see an end to the misery Alice was going through, and the intense pressure it put on me as her mother was overwhelming at times. All I wanted was my beautiful baby back. Although she is and always was beautiful in my eyes, her skin was sore, cracked and itchy which made her look different and made people stare. Thankfully she was too young to realise that this common skin condition made her look different from all the other babies her age.

Alice was clearly distressed a lot of the time. And so was I! I look back at the many sleepless nights I had laying by her side, holding her hands to prevent her from ripping her skin to shreds and wonder how we ever got through it. But we did because we had help and support from family and friends and advice and treatment from our health professionals. Plus my desire to learn as much as possible about eczema gave me the strength to cope.

When I started TalkEczema nearly 8 years ago I never imagined that so many people would visit the site and it would be the huge resource it is today. Nor did I ever imagine that TalkEczema would lead to a group of support and information web sites for other health conditions too. Over the last few years I have realised that there are many thousands of people out there, just like me, who need support and help. So I hope you find that help within these sites.

Best wishes
Deborah Mason

Last Update: 28 May 2008