Fruity Beauty

If your hands are red, chapped, scaled and/or have small cuts, then it’s very possible that you have some form of hand eczema. There are a number of possible causes for this that fall into one of two main categories: irritant eczema causes and allergic eczema causes.

Irritant eczema is where the cause is found in something that is a skin irritant – this could be as simple as washing your hands too frequently with a detergent that irritates your skin. Allergic eczema sounds similar, but in this instance its your immune system that is reacting with whatever you are putting in contact with your hands and this can include fabrics and metals such as nickel based cooking utensils as well as chemical detergents. Hand eczema isn’t in any way contagious but it’s not very pretty to look at so even as you start clearing it up, you need to work on what it is that’s causing the problem.

The first thing you can try to clear up the eczema on your hands is with a simple moisturizer. Healthy skin is hydrated, and red, chapped, scaly eczema affected hands can be greatly improved by making sure you keep the area well moisturized. There are creams that are thick enough to be waterproof which means that if your hands are often in water throughout the day, you don’t have to keep reapplying it – but even if you are wearing some kind of waterproof moisturizer, you should wear gloves (unless of course you’ve identified that latex or rubber gloves are the cause) to protect your hands more. You may find that applying moisturizer at night and then putting cotton gloves on will ensure that the cream stays on your hands long enough to sink through your skin rather than it rubbing off on your bed linen before it’s had a chance to be of benefit to your eczema problem.

If this doesn’t start to clear up the problem, talk to your pharmacist. There are a number products you can buy without prescription that contain some form of steroid that will more aggressively treat the symptoms of the eczema, however because these are steroids it’s best to have one recommended by a pharmacist who can look at your hands and advice if it would be better to go direct to a doctor, or which over-the-counter application is likely to work the best – and also advise on any possible problems that could occur with other medication you may be taking.

Hand eczema that doesn’t easily clear up needs to be examined by a doctor. Your doctor may be able to give you some form of medication and advice on how to clear up your skin problem, or he may refer you to a dermatologist who is better qualified to advice on the problem, and who ought to be able to test you, in the case of recurring allergic eczema, to see what’s the cause of the allergy. The dermatologist will also be able to identify if the problem you have is actually eczema or whether it’s a different skin condition that looks similar.

Once you get the hand eczema outbreak cleared up, remember the importance of good skin care on your hands and make sure that you find time during the day to moisturize them thoroughly. If you work with your hands in liquid, even water, find some form of barrier cream that will stop the liquid seeping through your skin, or wear protective gloves, and hopefully with this, and avoiding anything that you have discovered an allergy to, you’ll find that you don’t have another eczema experience.

If it wasn’t enough to have all of the internal changes going on in your body, and the emotional ones in your head, pregnancy will also show itself on your skin.  Some people will be lucky enough to glow throughout their 9 months, but even these women will probably encounter other skin issues along the way from conception to birth!

Any area of your skin that is has pigmentation to it, such as facial freckles or even the skin around your armpits, will become darker.  It may not even be that noticeable under normal conditions, but once your pregnant, the pigmentation will deepen.  You’ll find that this is even more evident after you’ve been out in the sun so it’s imperative that you use a good sun block (one that blocks UVA as UVA can actually penetrate through to the baby!) when going out in the sun.  A more visible display of pigmentation change on the face is known as chloasma, also known as a “mask of pregnancy” and the neck, cheeks and bridge of the nose are the affected areas which turn a shade of brown.  You can’t do anything to get rid of chloasma until after the baby is born when it will fade by itself, but you can use some form of blemish covering make-up to tone it down if not cover it completely.

One of the problems that arises on a pregnant woman’s face is spider veins.  These occur because of the blood vessels that constrict and dilate depending on your body temperature are more sensitive during pregnancy, and when these tiny blood vessels break they leave a mark known as spiders veins.  Don’t worry about them though; they usually fade quickly once the baby is born.

Stretch marks are something that pregnant women dread, and they are mostly unavoidable.  Some women will have them but as they are so fine they can’t be seen unless they’re looking for them, other women will either spend their pregnancy covering them up with clothes and/or cosmetics, or alternatively wearing them like a badge of pride!  The overall elasticity of the skin is largely what determines how much skin damage you will incur from stretch marks, so it’s more a question of what you can do to improve that elasticity before you become pregnant, rather than once baby’s already in the making!  One thing you can do during the pregnancy however is to follow a good nutritional diet because quick excessive weight gain will test even skin with great elasticity!  Massaging oils and lotions into stomach once the baby has been born will help encourage the skin back into its normal state, and in most cases stretch marks fade over time until they are hardly noticeable silvery lines.

Pregnancy affects a woman’s body in both a positive and negative way as the changes in hormone levels rise and fall.  The best way to get through the pregnancy without being stressed out about the way these changes affect your appearance is to follow skincare routines that promote wellbeing in your skin, and accept the things that are going to happen as being outside of your control.  Remember, as long as the baby’s healthy, you can live with the process!  Right?