Peeling and sore fingertips symptoms

Im 15 and i have the same thing all of you have mentioned for about 5 years now. This is by far one of the most difficult things to deal with as an athlete(especially a basketball player.

Its hard for me to remember the beginning stages because as a younger kid i payed little attension to it. But now that it is beginning to effect my highschool carrer i need some help(like the rest of you who came to this forum) but there doesnt seem to be an anwser yet so all i can do is tell you what the condition is like on my finger tips.

The skin has peeled away skin on every finger on my right hand excluding my "pinky" finger. The missing skin has revealed a pink secondary layer. At other times the skin hardens to the point where it splits which can be very painful. I read above that many people have the condition come and go. My expierence is differnt because of the fact that it exist all through the year. It used to come during the winter and go during the summer. All i can figure is that the disease has strenghtened, i hope not though, i despertly want it to go away. I hope for that every day.

I have the same condition which has at different times affected all my fingertips over the past year and a half. I have found that soaking my hands in an aluminum acetate solution called Domboro has really helped to relieve the symptoms and keep the skin from peeling and cracking for the most part. i am keyboard player and avid golfer, so it has been a struggle to deal with the painful symptoms. I have found that coupling the soaking with a steroid cream (clobetestol) also reduces the inflammation. Hope this helps. It doesn't seem to be a cure, but it does control the

Hi,
This is a problem that has affected me two or three other times in my life, all times were long-running, the condition seemed to 'drift away' perhaps after months, a year or so, had passed.
It's to the point my dishes have not been done for almost a MONTH now, because getting my hands/fingertips wet and exposed to detergent (laundry has become difficult, too) makes the condition WORSE.
I'm wondering. There HAS to be more in common with us than we've touched so far. I, too, play guitar, but only once or twice every month or so the past few years.
I GARDEN daily (not so much now, though, with it being fall), sometimes with my bare hands, sometimes using fabric gloves, even using vinyl gloves if I'm handling plants or seeds that irritate (four o clock, marigold, general weeding, etc.) AND have had moderate psoriasis (elbows, knees, top of hands) since I was 12. I also have very "bad" feet: cracked, peeling thick skin on soles, the heels being worst. Lotions, creams, oils have NEVER alleviated my psoriasis OR feet problems. But their intensity DOES seem cyclical: sometimes severity subsides a bit during the year (for instance, my psoriasis seems to clear up, to 20% of its usual presence, during late fall and to mid winter!).

Does anyone else here suffer similar skin problems, like psoriasis, bad feet (LOL), etc.; and have other common hobbies/environments?

I'm 45, female, in Illinois, psoriasis / fibromyalgia - arthritis / spinal stenosis sufferer, garden and crochet, have five cats, smoke... Lately, though, I've been extremely FATIGUED (even falling asleep while STANDING in line recently!) and ummm, have had bouts of nausea and / constipation...
I wonder if we can find similarities in our lifestyles that might better indicate a potential culprit?

Desperately wanting answers, too...
Shea (aka "jipsi")

PS: Maybe if there were enough people participating here (as I sort of did, above), I (or someone else so inclined?) could analyze the results and numbers, create a results list of the things us flaky-fingers sufferers have in common?

Perhaps the following would work for this purpose? (Suggestions/additions welcome):

Age:
Gender:
Location:
Other Health Issues:
Hobbies (limit to top five):
Pets:
Smoke: Y / N
Other CURRENT/unusual symptoms:

I have had this for several years, my doctor says it is Keratolysis Exfolitiva.

It seems like this finger tip peeling problem is pretty common among guitar players. I am 66 years old, and have played guitar for most of those years. For many years as a professional. But my dead skin peeling problem started about 2 and a half yerars ago. It started out with a needle tip size soar spot on the the tip of my index finger on my left hand. The dead skin followed and spread on my finger then peeled. A few weeks later it happened again but spread to all of my fingers on my left hand. Nothing in my life or what I used for soap etc. changed. It just started one day. The doctors have no answer, and it looks like noone else does either. It is of interest thought to read all of the threads from other people with the problem.

Sonny.

I don't have this same problem, however as a casual observer one might thing that perhaps there is some type of allergic reaction to the metal in guitar strings. Perhaps copper or nickel?

I've also experienced peeling skin, usually around the winter season. Based on my research, it is a typical dry skin disorder. The application of lotion or moisturizer several times a day seems to be effective. Anything that contributes to dryness seems to agitate the symptoms: things that come to mind are excessive hand washing and exposure to cold environments.

I have been troubled by this problem for a few years now. It started on a calloused area on the ball of my foot. I picked it and made it bleed every time it peeled. Subsequently it spread to all my fingers around the nails and above the top finger joint.
Now, I have an almost continuous cycle of callous, peel, bleed on my fingers. It does seem to increase in severity with stress.

I'm not a medical man, but I suspect that it is a viral infection. I'm thinking along the lines of plantar warts, veruccas, herpes, etc.

The reason I think this is because I suspect that it is transmitted by viral infected blood (like a wart or verucca) Have you noticed the following:
When you peel off a bit of calloused skin, it always starts off as a clean peel with good fresh skin underneath. But as the peel goes further, it becomes increasingly raw, to the point where it becomes a bloody tear.
This torn point always seems to bleed like mad, and does not coagulate quickly as a normal cut would. It also seems to leave deep red subcutaneous marks behind as it heals, as if there is some virus creating its own blood supply (research plantar warts for examples of what I mean) Then when these infected sites break out, the bleed serves to spread the virus.

Also my family have developed similar symptoms which leads me to suspect that it is infectious (although true, it could be genetic, but the fact they have all appeared withing a year of each other at various different ages leads me to discount genes)

Have you notices how you often get symmetrical peels on the left and right hands at the same time? Also how it seems all your fingers break out at exactly the same time? That sounds like typical viral behaviour to me. Something triggers the virus circulating in your blood to switch into reproduction breakout mode. Maybe in response to your weakened immune system due to stress or health?

I suspect this virus is something that you can not get rid of, it can be supressed but once you have it it is there forever. There are plenty examples of similar viruses.

The best you can do is keep your immune system in tip top condition, which will keep the virus supressed. That and treat the bleeds like infectious sites and prevent the blood from jumping between fingers, toes hands or feet.

I share your pain!

47 year old caucasian male.

Cheers.

My fingertips ALL 10 are numb, no pain. This started last wednesday it is now the following tuesday. They just began peeling today. Befor today they were just thickly numb and my palms were red with red hard streaks. I went to the doc yesterday befor the peeling and go back thursday for blood tests. the wierd thing is is that my feet started hurting on teh same day my hands started acting crazy but they are not peeling just itching and burning. This is the 2nd time my hands have ever peeled and had actually forgotten about the last time since it was last year.My hands have always dried out and bled in the winter as far back as I can remember. I work in an office at a computer all day long. I have a personal heater under my desk which could help dry my skin out. My husband plays the guitar but I never touch it.

My fingertips ALL 10 are numb, no pain. This started last wednesday it is now the following tuesday. They just began peeling today. Befor today they were just thickly numb and my palms were red with red hard streaks. I went to the doc yesterday befor the peeling and go back thursday for blood tests. the wierd thing is is that my feet started hurting on teh same day my hands started acting crazy but they are not peeling just itching and burning. This is the 2nd time my hands have ever peeled and had actually forgotten about the last time since it was last year.My hands have always dried out and bled in the winter as far back as I can remember. I work in an office at a computer all day long. I have a personal heater under my desk which could help dry my skin out. My husband plays the guitar but I never touch it.

I have had the same problems with my hands, cracked, sore, peeling, dead feeling, just like all the others have described. No creams work, Stress sure makes it worse. I have been to all the dermatologists in my area, and my family doctor many times. The only thing that makes it go away is a shot of Prednisone. Within two weeks of the shot my hands are totally clear and stay that way for a couple of months. Even in the coldest of the NE winters. but once the shot wears off the dead feeling starts to return, then the thick skin, and the peeling and the cracks. It started in a small area on my hand and has now covered the tips of all my fingers and down to the seccond joint of my right indes and middle finger. I have also started to get little red out breaks of the same thing on my face and two on my leg. [/enc]

Guys, my daughter had had the condition described above for many years. This winter it was really bad, so we looked for the solution desperately...
What did we found : capsules of fish oil and capsules of black currant seeds oil are working! (the dosage depends on you body mass)
First time in many years she has a clean skin on her fingertips!!!

Good luck!

I have had this for many years, although in the past two years, it has become more frequent. I have read each post and find quite a bit of it interesting. I am not a guitar player and do not, to my knowledge, have an excess of nickel in my diet. I suspect that the fish oil capsules would do a world of good. I, too, have done the vaseline & bandaid wraps, covering them with rubber finger cots to keep them dry and actually on the finger. I am going to try the hydrogen peroxide treatment, to see what it does. I sell shoes and the silica packets in the boxes can cause excessive drying. I'm a "worker bee" and don't generally take the time to put lotion on my hands, even when they are dry and cracking. I recently purchased some finger gloves from http://www.fingergloves.com/ and they are helping a great deal. I put vaseline on my fingers and then slip the finger gloves over that. They are very much like the finger cots but they are much thicker and last a lot longer. While it may be viral, I know that stress is a huge factor in how often and how severe the outbreaks seem. I have an appointment with a rheumatologist in February to discuss the possibility of Lupus. I have other symptoms and my mother was diagnosed when I was a baby, although she seems to have been in remission for quite a number of years. It is very interesting that there are so many people and so little knowledge of a cause. Like others, I have been prescribed steroids, both oral and topical creams, and they do little in the way of cure but they do help with some of the inflammation and itching.

**********888

Hey, I posted a few post up from this one. I am a guitar player, although the peeling and splitting has kept me from it. As I stated above, I have /had a couple of spots of red flaky areas on my face and a couple on my legs. They start as a red dot with a hard center that eventually just flakes off leving a flaky place. On my hands I notice that it seems to affect places worse where the skin is thickest. So my right thumb and right index finger were the worst, my middle finger on the right where my pen rest when writing is also affected. But I also have peeling on the sides of my fingers by the finger nails. I do not believe it is a virus, if it was it should have gotten worse with a shot of predisone. Since the predisone actually weakens the body's ability to fight virus. Predisone cleared mine but only while I was on it, then it came back. I have reached the amount of predisone my doctor says I can take so I have not had any since Feb 2006. My hands were the worst they had ever been as of last Saturday. I had 13 bandades on my fingers. Now the good news.
Some one posted right after me last week that their daughter was taking capsules of fish oil and capsules of black currant seeds oil. Ok... I have never been much for the health food/vitiamin / all natural healing kind of stuff. But with my fingers killing me just to do simple things I was ready to try any thing. So I bought the capsules of fish oil and capsules of black currant seeds oil and started taking them last Monday. Today, Saturday, not quite a week later I do not have a single split on my fingers. There is still a lot of the thick dead skin on my right hand, but it is much less than last week. I played guitar last night for a couple of hours, both my acoustic and the electric. No splits and the redness around the areas that were peeling is getting much less. After only one week. I am taking 1000 mg of each in the morning and at night. I wonder if the capsules of capsules of black currant seeds oil contain a natural form of predisone? Because my hands are acting just like they did with a predisone shot, only none of the bad side effects I had with predisone. I suppose I should check it with my doctor to make sure. I don't want clear hands and a dead liver. But my hands are healing. Thats to whom ever posted it... it's a miracle for my hands and I thank God for you posting it.