I have hand eczema – I had never heard of it, but apparently I have been suffering with it all my life.
My hands crack and bleed from October through March. They have done this for my whole life. When I was a child, my mother used to slather my hands with butter and cover them with white cotton gloves and that is how I would sleep and heal – a little.
As an adult I have tried many prescriptions and OTC remedies and nothing worked. I have probably spent thousands of dollars by now, but spent months with ugly, painful hands. I have used gloves when doing dishes and they protected my hands from the hot water, but that was it.
When I searched the Internet I found out that I have hand eczema and the fix was super easy – petroleum jelly, cotton gloves and vinyl or latex ( if you don’t have an allergy ) examination gloves.
Cotton gloves with the petroleum jelly – I like tried and true Vaseline – overnight and the vinyl or latex gloves during the day as much as possible. They are very inexpensive so you can use multiple sets during the day for various tasks. Use them when preparing raw food so bacteria will not enter the tiny open wounds on the hands. I also found out that when handling foods like fish or onion they are perfect – trash the gloves and trash the smell!
I started doing this right after Thanksgiving as the holiday season is very difficult for me. Ugly and painful. This very simple solution worked beautifully with no cracks, no bleeding and my cuticles looked great.
I you suffer the same symptoms, give it a try. Simple, inexpensive and it works. Pretty hands, no pain.
Peace
Moonstruck in Jersey's Blog 