Hand Excema that won't get better (rant)
Late 2024, after several rounds of antibiotics and antifungals for unrelated issues, I developed really terrible hand excema. There was also a mold/mildew outbreak in early 2024 in my house after flooding in the crawl space, and I wonder often if this was part of it, because it's a continual battle and I can't move.
It's in the hand washing zone from my wrists down and then I have a random round spot that comes and goes further up on my arm.
I'm good at not scratching it but my skin splits all over and gets a little puffy around the splits, and it bleeds but it doesn't weep, I don't think. I know stress makes it worse but I don't know how not to stress that it'll get infected when there's things I can't avoid in life. It's so scary going grocery shopping and touching carts, or going to the doctor. Even if I have gloves, my wrists still peak out. It hurts constantly and I'm already dealing with so much pain in general. I want to garden and not have an anxiety attack if I don't use gloves. Or not be stopped from crafting because bending my knuckles splits them.
I lotion constantly and can literally only find dandruff shampoo as something to wash my hands with now, because every hand soap I try causes a horrible flare and this kind of helps. I need help with so many more things because of my hands. Tonight I had to deal with some gross laundry and I feel like I'm going to cry because I'm scared it'll infect my skin.
My late cat noticed it stressed me out when she tried to lick my hands, because they were even worse then, and even though she loved to sit and groom my hands she stopped on her own. I'm still sad about that. I'm sad I couldn't fix them in time.
Sometimes I can tell my family is annoyed that my hands are causing problems and sometimes they talk to me in a way that makes me feel like they think I'm not trying to fix it. In general my mom tries to help, and she feels really bad when she's pushy about a new product and it backfires, but it sucks. I shouldn't dwell on the rare occasion they're annoyed about it but it hurts, I don't know what to do anymore.
Mid 2025 I did a derm allergy test, because I've always had reactions to lots of things. It came back for fragrance, lanolin, and the oils of plants in the aster family. My skin also hates adhesives. She gave me steroids for my hands that honestly did nothing but burn and then a list of safe products. But I've reacted horribly to lots of those products and had to go back to ones I should be allergic to but don't hurt me. So I'm so confused. And sometimes a product will be fine and then boom, nope, skin hates it too now. I had to discontinue my last lotion because it'd get on my chin/neck through the gloves while I slept and my lower face started getting angry.
This is definitely a rant. I see pictures where my hands were fine and I took that for granted. Sometimes I wake up to a day where I've got no bad splits but I have to do nothing in the days before to achieve that and then it's ruined by the end of the day. I generally try to soldier on but I'm really tired. I've been through the loop of adjusting to new, permanent health conditions over and over but my hands being like this is really something else.