As a board certified pediatrician, I treated children’s diseases for more than twenty years. For painful eczema, I prescribed the usual steroid treatments and salves, knowing that Western Medicine was mostly holding it at bay but never really curing it.

When you are a physician, you can sympathize, empathize, and treat conditions but you never really know what your patients are enduring until it happens to you. After I retired, I developed scalp eczema myself. I sought medical and dermatological help but none of the prescription treatments were working It seemed the itching would never stop I finally understood the misery my patients had endured. The constant itching was driving me mad, and the inevitable scratching only made the condition worse.

As someone trained not just in Western medicine, but in Acupuncture as well, I had long incorporated the motto that “the best medicine is the medicine that works”. When one of my adult children said, “This is crazy mom. There has to be a better answer.” I set out to find a better medicine.

Together, we studied scientific medical and natural journals and began exploring traditional and natural remedies for scalp eczema. We joined our differing expertise - mine in biochemistry and my child’s training in environmental science. We devised an at-home laboratory and set about making and sampling concoctions based in nature and supported by science.

Every experiment became a therapy for me to try. To my amazement, one remedy worked so well it felt like a cure. The itching went away and so did the sores. I used it every day for a month and then I forgot to use it because there were no more red spots or itching. I decided to see how long the “cure” would last. After about 6 months, I noticed some itching and used the Eczma and Itchy Skin Remedy on the spots whenever I had symptoms.

As a retired doctor, people are always asking you for your opinion about their aches, pains and ills. I shared my discovery with some of my friends who also had eczema, including my hairdresser’s daughter, who suffered from very bad scalp eczema. She said she used it once and the eczema never came back. Another friend who had scalp eczema had the same experience that I had, and needed only spot treatment after the initial treatment period. Clearly, the good results weren’t just limited to me, and I could credit the success of my treatment to the formula and not just personal dumb luck.

Next, we tried the formula on eczema on other areas of the body. My dental hygienist had painful and embarrassing eczema on her hands and arms, exacerbated by her using glvoes all day at work. She used my formula, and four hours later the redness and itchiness was resolved! She does have to continue using it, but the level of relief it has given her was unparalleled.

Around the same time, I started getting pain in some of my joints. Once again, my child came to the rescue, and suggested that dandelions can help; I thought, well, it can’t hurt. Dandelions are indeed a traditional medicine here in Alaska and throughout the world. We picked the dandelions out of my organically-grown lawn and formulated a salve. It worked better than any topical prescription anti-inflammatory I had ever used.

Ever the healer, I couldn’t just couldn’t keep these formulas to myself. If they can offer relief to others, that’s the mission I set out on in life so many decades ago when I first entered the medical world. That the formulas are natural, safe, and affordable is even more exciting for me than dispensing pharmaceuticals that can contain harsh chemicals, are costly, and often just do not work.

Glacier Garden Apothecary was born!