Recently while reading through a few posts on an online support group I seen that I am not the only one suffering with this odd form of eczema. I thought I’d do a little more research and share my experience living with it.
What is this form of dermatitis eczema? Simple breakdown is this; Small fluid filled blisters appear on the hands, fingers, and feet. (for me it’s just my hands). Sometimes they itch, and sometimes they don’t. Once they break open, there tends to be dry, scaly, crusted patches that cover the area. For me it can be extremely painful and my skin cracks open. It makes doing dishes, taking showers or baths painful. I can’t take to wash my hair the way they are now. We are all different when and how we break out. Stress, cold weather, certain allegories, and working with chromium, cobalt , and/or nickel has been linked to people who have higher occurrences as well. Talk to your doctor for more information.
When I started to get sick and everything was happening all at once and way too fast for me to comprehend what was happening to me, thankfully a very good immunologist had me tested for HLA-B27. This simple little blood test is a positive or negative. You either have it or you don’t. in my case I am positive. Of all the tests of tying to figure out what was going on, this was an easy one to be explained. The HLA-B27 antigen in a positive person suggests a greater risk of having an autoimmune disorder. A few examples are Ankylosis spondylitis, Crohn’s Disease, Psoriatic Arthritis, and Reactive Arthritis. There are many others I am just naming a few so you can understand the jest of where I’m coming from.
I suffer from Dyshidrosis on my hands. I immediately seen a Dermatologist when this started years ago. however, the years of trying to figure what was actually wrong with me finally came to an end when I was diagnosed with Still’s Disease. You would’ve thought my Dermatologist won the lottery! Once he read up on Still’s and did some research, we began charting my occurrences along with fever spikes, and Still’s Flares. He has no doubt in my case when I’m stressed or when I am having a flare up, my Eczema flares up as well. Hooray something we can work with!
Full Side of Hand after bumps
Small Blisters in the Beginning Stage
My hands have been in full disgusting, painful, crusty, ugly flare since Thanksgiving. This is the worst the eczema has been for me. The pictures attached are my actual hands this past week. For me it’s usually not bad. The bumps appear and the liquid drains and then gets crusty and goes away. Defiantly not happening this time. I use Triamcinolone 1% cream. That was working great, just not as well as it did before. I’ve been in a decent flare since Thanksgiving as well. As of tonight it’s been the dishwasher doing all the dishes, thank goodness for them. As for my hair, well it’s a mess. It’s been too painful to go through my normal routine, thankfully I have a husband that will help me wash my hair. Yes ladies there’s a few of them out there. I will probably give it another week, if no change I’ll call my Dermatologist and see if we can change the medication for a while.
Hopefully this little bit of information will help others to relate what we are going through with our hands, and some with their feet. I’ll end this with a question. What do you use to treat the eczema or do you have any home remedies’ that you could share with us?
