Painful Peeling Hands and Feet After Diving

[scuba doc]

I know you were kidding, but I think there would be enough moisture in a dry suit to still be a problem--trench foot is just from continued damp sock exposure, and for folks with hand issues, you'd need to keep hands dry. Oddly, I've only had it on my hands once. It's usually just feet. From my reading of general blogs, people's skin issues varies. I have eczema, but my husband's skin is "normal to slightly oily." So little published about it, hard to say...

 

[CaveMD]

I can say very definitively it's not the water he's diving in. I recognize the condition with 100% certainty. As to what you can do about it, I couldn't tell you but I can tell you a number of things that haven't worked so far.

 

[CaveMD]

Here is a picture of me in 2011 at Cathy's (dive outpost) loading gear in to the truck for a visit to eagles nest And if you look closely you can see my hands I'm wearing blue nitrile gloves but you can't see is they're filled to the brim with lotion. This was during the period of time where I basically lived at Cathy's for a month spending around 8 hours a day under water. I've been dealing with the condition my whole life. I still do not know what exactly what it is or what it's called or if it even has a name, you are literally the only other person I have ever seen with this condition. And that's from an MD who has it himself and no dermatologists or other medical student or medical textbook I have seen in all my years of training with it right there in front of me to compare it to have I ever found another match.

But what I can tell you does help, anytime you're going diving especially if it's cave diving that involves any pulling and gliding or similar type requirement to actually grab a hold of the environment rather than just keeping your hands together or touching your own gear, is to always wear gloves everywhere, I don't care what anybody says about whether or not you should wear gloves related to protecting the environment, this is irrelevant and does not apply to you. Wear gloves everywhere.

When you're out of the water in between dives on a dive trip get you a pack of nitrile gloves or other type of thin stretchy gloves or what you can do is what I've gone to doing is getting some dex-fit gloves from Amazon they're like 12 or $13 for a pack of three that last a while have excellent grip coating on the palm and fingers, great dexterity and work fine with cell phones. In fact I'm wearing them right now because I'm currently staying in Fort Lauderdale. As soon as you get out of the water slather it all over your hands even squirt some extra down inside the gloves and then put the gloves on and keep them on, sleep in them.
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FKLWF3G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_mEP3FbP111HH3 these are the gloves I have pretty much been wearing everywhere when I'm out of the water.

This won't fix the problem but it will definitely make it substantially less severe in my personal experience, I do not say this as a physician patient recommendation for a number of reasons the most important of which being is that I didn't learn any of this in medical school anyway nor residency In order to give it as advice as an MD, it is simply advice from someone who has the same condition you do that hasn't been able to find help anywhere except ironically at the end of my own fingertips.

 

[CaveMD]

I've dealt with this my entire life growing up learning to swim shortly after I learned to walk because my mother was a single parent that worked all the time and my grandmother took care of me as best she could but... Let's just say if I didn't learn to swim shortly after I learned to walk, with a swimming pool in the backyard, I would have been "selected against". And I dealt with this problem my entire childhood and teenage years because I went swimming all the time to the point where I could barely walk many many times because my feet were so cracked and sore and I have a habit of opening aluminum cans with my teeth because I'm so used to my hands being so screwed up from this that it is much easier than trying to use my fingers to open it. There's no one in my extended family history with CF whatsoever I don't think I've been formally tested for it but I know on my 23andme it never said anything about it and I'm pretty sure that was one of the things that they do test for on that.

Just went back and added some pictures I took today.

 

[jnurse]

I have the problem everytime i go diving it developed when i was in my twenties one day out of nowhere. I was an underwater videographer and had to stop by profession. I now only go diving on vacation and take prednisone and it helps significantly.

 

[Qjkang]

I have the problem everytime i go diving it developed when i was in my twenties one day out of nowhere. I was an underwater videographer and had to stop by profession. I now only go diving on vacation and take prednisone and it helps significantly.

I got my diving license in 2012, and I have the same problem since 2016.
Maybe i should try and take prednisone when I go diving. Hopefully it helps.
Thank you.