Wear gloves, wash your hands less often, apply hand cream, use the right medicine, and restore your beautiful "housewife hands"!

Autumn is a season of frequent climate change and dry weather, which is a high incidence of skin allergies. Among autumn skin allergies, eczema is a relatively common disease. "Housewife's hands" is actually hand eczema, which is called "housewife's hands" because it is more common in housewives. Its main manifestations are dryness and desquamation, dark red spots, infiltration and hypertrophy, or chapped hands. At this time, if some irritating substances are exposed, obvious itching or tingling may occur. For housewife's hands, it is most important to moisturize and hydrate the skin to keep it moisturized.

Due to edema between epidermal cells in eczema lesions, the intercellular space increases, the skin brick wall structure is unstable, the original skin barrier is destroyed, and transepidermal water loss increases; inflammatory cell infiltration affects the normal metabolism of the skin, resulting in a decrease in lipids, natural moisturizing factors and anti-inflammatory factors, and the skin becomes dry, flaky, and more sensitive. Damage to the skin barrier reduces the skin's ability to resist external stimuli and is prone to secondary infection. Therefore, it is very important to rebuild the skin barrier in the treatment of eczema. So, how to rebuild the skin barrier?

1

Avoid contact with allergens

Allergens mainly include proteins, fragrances, hair dyes, preservatives, heavy metals, etc.; irritants mainly include soap and other detergents, acids and alkalis, organic solvents, etc. When doing housework, wear gloves when necessary. Be careful to choose cotton gloves. Additives such as latex, nitrile, and rubber can cause glove-related urticaria. In addition, do not wear non-breathable protective gloves for a long time to avoid increased sweating of the hands, further damaging the skin barrier and causing occlusive dermatitis.

2

Avoid frequent hand washing

Do not soak your hands in water for a long time. Frequent exposure to water will damage the protective barrier on the surface of the skin, making it easy for germs to invade and worsening eczema. When washing hands, the water temperature should not be too cold or too hot, and do not rub the skin hard. When cleaning, you can choose sulfur soap or alcohol-containing disinfectants instead of detergents. Do not use detergents, soaps and other highly alkaline cleaning products.

3

Keep Moisturizing

After washing your hands, you should apply hand cream immediately, not wait until your hands are completely dry, so as to lock in moisture in time. If you do it before going to bed, you can wear cotton gloves to sleep. You can choose a non-fragrance hand cream rich in lipids, such as pure white vaseline, vitamin E, or moisturizers containing antimicrobial peptides and hyaluronic acid. In addition, you can place an air humidifier in the room to keep the indoor air moist, which can prevent the occurrence of eczema to a certain extent.

Rational use of drugs

1

Source: 2015 Chinese Journal of Dermatology "Expert Consensus on Standardizing Topical Glucocorticoids"

2

Calcineurin inhibitors

Commonly used drugs include tacrolimus and pimecrolimus, which have multiple effects such as anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and steroid hormones and can be used as an alternative/supplementary solution to hormone therapy.

In addition to drug treatment, phototherapy can also be chosen. Ultraviolet radiation therapy is suitable for moderate to severe, recurrent chronic hand eczema that is ineffective with topical hormone treatment, and can be used as a supplement to conventional treatment.

Hand eczema is an allergy-related disease and is not contagious. In daily life, patients can safely shake hands and other daily contacts without worrying about infecting others.