Wedding in a week bad hand eczema

Moderators: talkhealth, Marcie Mom, AnnaB, StephanieJae, Koh Ming Shao

Post Reply
55 posts
User avatar
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 6:28 pm
Location: South East, UK
Quote

by admin on Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:56 pm

Hand Eczema

Do you have hand eczema? How does it affect your life? Let us know.
talkhealth team
Read our health blog - http://www.talkhealthpartnership.com/blog

User avatar
AnnaB
Posts: 689
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 10:38 pm
Quote

by AnnaB on Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:08 pm

Re: Hand Eczema

My 3 yaer old son suffers with really bad Eczema on his hands. The cracks get so deep you cannot be far off the bone. His fingers bleed and get infected, at times his hands are too painful to hold a fork and we have to feed him. They can be fine one day and really bad within just hours. he's just had a 3 week period where he had to wear cotton gloves 24/7. I've just started to notice strangers looking at him when we are out as it is the wrong time of year for gloves, so people notice. I bite my lip and walk on. He is really into spiderman, so as his suit includes gloves we call them 'spiderman gloves', this works for now. Pre school have been fantastic. They ensure he uses his creams, avoids their soap and keep him away from wet or messey activities when his hands are bad. Wet sand has been a real problem in the past we think this was the cause of a major flare. We have Dermovate now for when his hands are bad. So strong for such a young age but you have to go with it as it helps.
AnnaB
Forum Moderator
talkhealth moderation team

Mavis
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:24 pm
Quote

by Mavis on Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:32 pm

Re: Hand Eczema

Hi

I'm 30 and have had eczema since I was 3 weeks old so I guess I'm fairly used to it by now :-) Over the last 5-10 years or so, the rest of my body has become managable while my hands have got worse. At the moment, I am unable to straighten my fingers as they are so cracked, the heel of my right hand is also cracked to the point that it hurts to rest on it. Every night I smother my hands in epiderm and steroid cream, and wear cotton gloves to bed. After various tests, it doesn't seem that there is a particular thing that I'm allergic too, although stress is a major trigger - and I get stressed quite easily!

How it affects my life? Well washing my hands can be agony so you'll often find me grimacing as I cover my hands in water, I'm constantly moisterizing after washing so sometimes you know where I've been as I leave greasy fingerprints on door handles or on bits of paper if I've not had time to let it sink in properly. Most nights my hands throb as I lie down to sleep. Some days it gets me down as I know I get stared at so I like to keep them covered with long sleeves, while other days I just get on with it.

I'm still hoping that one day I'll find the real trigger for the eczema and beable to do something about it - till then it's epiderm and sore hands.

garyriley31
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 10:28 pm
Quote

by garyriley31 on Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:00 am

Re: Hand Eczema

I just posted this in another topic and then noticed this... guys for the love of god please please please try this out! I'm very sure this could greatly help you... i think to get the most out of this you should make sure you use it 24/7, even if that means taking a few weeks off work to do it. Please let me know if it helps.

Hey guys, i've suffered with eczema for most of my life, i'm 21 now, and i have personally found that using the usual stuff has only ever helped me control my eczema flare-ups to a degree. But their might be a little ray of hope from a rather bizarre solution. For the last 2 - 3 years i have suffered with very bad eczema on my hands and it only ever seemed 2 get a little better and then go bad again. I had tried everything, from wet wraps, to tones of moisturiser all the time, and a whole lot more, but it never got rid of it.

Then several weeks ago my doctor recommended wearing gloves, the same as what doctors wear, while using steroid creams. he told me it would help the skin absorb the cream more effectively. That same day i tried it, and continued to do so for several weeks. Unfortunately, i found it would make my skin very itchy at times and the gloves seemed to hold the heat in, which was not comfortable. However, four days ago i was watching a TV program about burn victims and how they were treated when first admitted to hospital. It showed that they were wrapped in clear food wrap, the stuff you wrap your sandwiches in, in order to dull the nerve endings in the skin. this got me thinking about my hands and whether or not it would do the same for the itching. And so that night i tried it, i wrapped both my hands in food wrap and went to bed. the next morning when i woke up i realised i hadn't woke up in the night scratching my hands. But the best was yet to come as i continued to wrap my hands in food wrap twice a day, both during the day and at night, and i found it was healing rather quickly. Admittedly, it looks daft and is bit awkward to do stuff but it works!

It has now been almost 5 days of constantly having food wrap on my hands 24/7, not including adding fresh food wrap in the morning and then at night, and all i can say is thank god i tried it. Not only does it stop me scratching, but the natural moisture in your skin keeps it from ever getting dry and cracking, plus it helps the cuts heal much faster (in my opinion) and come away leaving fresh healthy skin.

Basically, if you can tolerate looking a little daft, tolerate the smell of sweat when having to change the dressings and don't mind buying quite a bit of food wrap then i very much recommend this. I also want to make clear i think this will work for almost any part of the body too, i plan on using it on my legs when my hands are 100%, there about 90% right now after just 5 days. Oh and one more piece of advice, try applying your steroid cream before wrapping them up in order to help the skin absorb it better while their covered up.

That is it i'm afraid, i wish i could give more helpful tips, but you all know the usual methods, this however is the best i've found yet. Hope it helps, and please feel free to let me know if you have success with this method or have any questions.

chesie2
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:42 pm
Quote

by chesie2 on Sat Aug 09, 2008 11:35 pm

Re: Hand Eczema

I'm going to try the food wrapping. I started having hand eczema last year, it got really bad, the crackings were so deep that I couldn't open my hands fully specially my right hand and I'm a righty, so it was very painful to go with everyday chores. After a couple of weeks it started to expand to my body, first my trunk, then back, legs and arms, I thought it will stop there but then it moved to my neck and face. I went through a very stressful time in my life before the eczema show up first in my hands, my husband almost died in an accident and I had to take care of him like and elderly man for a few weeks and we have two small children, friends and co-workers were helping us but overall it was too much stress for me. My doctor told me that stress had nothing or very little to do with eczema and prescribed me steroids. I wasn't very happy with that but I used it because the eczema was really bad and I wanted to get rid of it. It did but only to come back a few days later. I started trying a lot of moisturizers like everybody and different types of body wash and also reading a lot about it on the internet and I found a lot of things that my doctor never told me that could help me control eczema. The moisturizers that really work at least for me are the Olay Body quench therapy for extremely dry skin itchy skin, the body wash I found works best is the Gentle Naturals baby wash, yes!! for babies,and don't use a washcloth or sponge,wearing loose cotton clothes ,bye bye tight jeans, and the most important the SUN!!!. This summer after having controlled the eczema flare ups a little bit better we went to the Oregon beaches, it was very windy and the water cold but very sunny on the 70's almost 80's a couple of days, just by beach combing and laying on the sand (wearing bermudas) because I didn't feel confident enough to show my legs yet, I tanned from the knees down and all my arms and of course my face and neck. A couple of weeks later after the trip, back in the city, I got break outs again everywhere, but on the parts of my body that got the sun. Easy science, why my doctor never told me that there's actually UVB treatment for people with eczema??, it works!!!. Please try this either the natural sun or the UVB treatments. Maybe I should moved my whole family to Hawaii or the Caribbean or go back to the humid east coast, wish I could!!. My older son suffers from eczema too but very very mild compare to me, he gets it on his eyes a little little bit and upper arms a little bit more, Aveeno cream works for him the one with the blue cap that says even for skin with eczema, in the winter when it can get a little worst for him his doctor prescribed Desonide and just a very tiny layer of it does the work for him, I hope he never gets a really bad flare-up like mine. Hope to find some more useful tips here and it is great to know that I'm not alone with this, that can sometimes be very devastating and affect self esteem.

kevinnrox
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:57 pm
Quote

by kevinnrox on Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:07 pm

Palm excema

Is it possible that stress can really make the excema reaction more severe. It seems that on the weekends the breakout slows. I've been recently diagnosed. I am middle aged and the dermatoligist say that it is hereditary?

JoshOwen
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:01 pm
Quote

by JoshOwen on Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:33 pm

MUST READ - Toctino - Just approved for use in the UK

Just found this searching for "eczema" in google news......

Sounds too good to be true!

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/120692.php

I'm gonna be asking my doctor about this on Monday.......

Puddleduck
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:49 am
Quote

by Puddleduck on Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:34 am

Re: MUST READ - Toctino - Just approved for use in the UK

Sounds good.

However, I'd proceed with caution, knowing as I already do from others who used a similar drug (vitamin A derivative) for severe acne called Isotretinoin, that it made some severely depressed and suicidal. Here's a link to an article on that particular subject:http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/ ... 141-5.html

Women will have to be careful with any vitamin A derivative if planning to have a baby after treatment, and definitely won't be able to use it while pregnant or trying to conceive, as it causes birth defects.

It's good that this article covers a few of the issues.

User avatar
AnnaB
Posts: 689
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 10:38 pm
Quote

by AnnaB on Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:17 pm

Re: Palm excema

Hi
Yes stress can be a factor. Have you thought about the soap you may be using or something you are in contact with at work.
AnnaB
Forum Moderator
talkhealth moderation team

ChrisTong
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:59 pm
Quote

by ChrisTong on Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:31 pm

Light at the End of Tunnel

Hi I'm new to the site, (at 58 only just learnt to use internet) and reading the message board, I've got off lightly, just suffering on the back of my hands. I've had it for 10yrs tried all sorts of creams, E45 and steroid creams with only temporary light relieve.
Then a friend of mine told me about INTRA, told me to look at the internet “justintra.net/whowlett” I tried it and after a month I was not too sure if there was any improvement, but after 2 months there was a marked improvement. Now almost 3 months later its almost gone.
I hope others have the same success and would love to hear from them.

Post Reply
55 posts