So tired with my hands

[Marias]

Hi, I just wanted to write something about my skin concerns because I know that you people will at least understand. The thing is that I just don´t know what to do with my hands. The fingertips are just so cracked and they look awful. I´m really really badly ashamed of my hands . I guess this what I´m having is pompholyx and it has no cure so I´ve heard. But that means like there´s no hope? Great.
I was on holiday last week, I had to take some free from the work because otherwise I couldn´t handle it. I espected my hands to get much better during that time but no. The skin just doesn´t seem to heal, it´s red and feels coarse and it´s sensitive to everything. I thought I wouldn´t have to go through this ever again. For like a half year my hands were pretty much ok.
I have tried soaking my hands in ACV and water and also in a zinc sulfate mixture. I´ve used antibiotic creams and creams that are ment to help with broken skin.Nothing just seems to help at the moment. i hate it how this sickness dictates my life and it doesn´t let me live like a normal person.
I feel depressed and hopeless. I have a lot of stress because of work and studies. I have booked a trip to Mexico but that will be in May....a long way to go. I wonder how the mexican climate and atmostphere would affect my skin condition? I have never been there, never been anywhere out of Europe. Should be interesting...

[totalfolly]

Hiya, Marias, and welcome to SkinCell!

I'm sorry your hands are giving you so much trouble.  Have you seen a derm about your skin problems?

totalfolly

[SF]

have you had any allergy tests done also? alot of times pompholyx CAN be caused by allergy's to nickel.

don't despair! mine got so bad last year that i had to skin left on my hands, and thought it would never get better. however..now...a year later, my hands look almost normal.

i spent a lot of time with my hands out in the sun, which seems to have helped alot. i also do soaks in saltwater, apple cider, and hydrogen peroxide, and this helps the pompholyx dry um quite quickly. soaking with apple cider also leaves my hands quite soft.

i've always been vegetarian, but have turned basically vegan, and have added different supplemtns to my diet: omega 3, flax seed, msm, vegetable silica...

and also have been doing alot of yoga to keep my stress level down.

i hope you find what works for you!

[Marias]

Hi, yes I have had allergy tests done. According to the test I´m not allergic to nickel and I´m not touching things that contain nickel much at all. Now that it´s winter my hands are covered with gloves all the time so I don´t touch even coins with my bare hands. I have but some nail polish on my posibly nickel containing jewerly and other items, just in case.
I have been avoiding chocolate, candies and all foods containing perservaties and colorants but that hasn´t affected my hands.
The allergytests showed me that I am extremely allergic to soy which was a complete surprise to me because I had been eating a lot of soy youghurt without any bad effects. Nowadays I´m not eating soy in any other form but soy lecitin (because they but it everywhere).

I think I´m allergic to most skin creams and probably I´ve made problems worse by using them. I´m very allergic to neomycin and once I used it by mistake.....you can only imagine how my hands flared up after that. I have to be very careful with what I´m using. Most moisturizing creams react on my skin. The one that I´m using contains:Agua
Decyl Oleate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Sodium Cetearyl Sulfate and Methylparaben. I can never use creams with fragnances.

Today I´m probably going to soak my hands in ACV and but some evening primrose oil in them or something. I really don´t now what to do at the moment. The skin of my fingers is quite broken. I had a lot of tiny blisters in them 2 weeks ago. Now the skin has been quite cracked for couple of weeks.

[lurker]

Marias, you could be allergic to petroleum and/or petroleum based products (petrolatum).  Alot of moisturizing creams have this and also ointments in general are based with petrolatum/petroleum.  Another possibility is lanolin, which is also in a lot of moisturizer products.

Soy is a tough one to avoid, I know, but it is a rather common allergy so you can get soy-free anything for the most part.

 - lurker