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Thread: Split fingers / cold weather
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6th July 2018, 09:41 AM #16
If moisturizers don't work you might be deficient in Vitamin C or niacin.
Innovations are those useful things that, by dint of chance, manage to survive the stupidity and destructive tendencies inherent in human nature.
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6th July 2018 09:41 AM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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7th July 2018, 11:32 PM #17SENIOR MEMBER
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Soaking in salt water as hot as you can stand seems to quickly take the pain away. I assume the hot increases blood flow and the salt is an antiseptic.
Russ
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8th July 2018, 10:42 AM #18
My pop use to say to me as a young 15yr old working on the farms through New England winters heavy frosts to pee on your hand and dry with your mates towel it will help with skin elasticity and thickness. So urea is an age old remedy that works thank goodness it’s a cream now [emoji6][emoji106]
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8th July 2018, 01:43 PM #19SENIOR MEMBER
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8th July 2018, 10:19 PM #20SENIOR MEMBER
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I'm pleased to say, by using plenty of moisturiser and wearing disposable gloves when possible has worked for me. I think the humidity inside the gloves is the answer.
Regards
Keith
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17th July 2018, 06:18 AM #21GOLD MEMBER
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1/2 mineral oil and 1/2 beeswax.
if you still get a split, glue it with superglue. I saw a PGA golfer mention that they have trouble with splits, which is a real issue for someone gripping rubber grips a couple of hundred times per day and then stressing their grips.
(it was fred couples, actually).
He had three types of superglue in his bag.
I have been using mine for minor cuts and splits longer than that, but was glad to see someone else doing it.
In the winter, I use the beeswax and mineral oil, though, twice per day, and the dry and splitty areas are a lot fewer. Ran into that by accident (there's a brand of oil and beeswax mixed here that sells for high dollars - burts bees - at least high dollars for what it is, and had mineral oil and beeswax mixed as a sanding wax for turning).
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17th July 2018, 11:58 PM #22
I used to have this as a regular year round issue when working as an Austpost parcel delivery guy. Could wear gloves for sorting and setting up the run but could not during the run. Typically, at least one crack would start to bleed during the day and need bandaids etc which would last about 1.5hrs max before falling off. Solution was to clean hands well at night, rub in Vitamin E cream before bed and fit latex disposable gloves to keep the slimy goodness on the skin rather than the bedding, peel gloves in when I rose for work, gentle rinse with tap water and wipe on towel gently. The worst cracks would clear and heal in a few days, and could stay away for weeks at a time, although if you missed the Mickey Mouse routine, others would return somewhere within a day or two and get you back into the routine.
I was also having big issues with cellulitis in lower legs during warmer months a couple of years ago, enough to put me in hospital on IV antibiotics for one week in four for about five months a year. This was finally traced to cracks in callouses on my heels and soles letting bacteria in and establish themselves in my impaired circulation legs. I currently use 15% and 25% urea creams to ablate the dead skin to reduce callous formation, and have regular 6 weekly podiatrist appointments to literally keep them ground down.
Basic difference between Vit E cream and Urea creams is that the Vit E cream promotes healing of the crack and softens the surrounding live skin reducing the tendency for it to dry out and extend the split, whereas Urea creams are intended to soften dead skin and allow it to wear away with regular motion instead of building up to the point where cracking is inevitable.I used to be an engineer, I'm not an engineer any more, but on the really good days I can remember when I was.
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18th July 2018, 12:07 AM #23
It's dryness that does it. Skin hardens (in all the wrong places, dammit), and gets caught on whatever.
Cut the hard skin off with small sharp scissors (been using a Swiss Army Knife for 50 years - same one). Then rub Lucas Paw Paw ointment into it at least twice a day, preferably 4x. Gotta get the moisture back into the skin to make it supple again. Cover with a Bandaid or masking tape with a touch of cotton wool to keep the moisture in and stop further catching on stuff.
Particularly brought on by concreting and/or working with dry earth in winter. Sucks the moisture out.
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19th July 2018, 01:01 AM #24
How interesting.
The last week I've been doing nothing but cleaning the workshop - everything and everywhere. Absolute spic and span.
No stone unturned, etc.
My hands are dry and dusty and between them dried out. I was having lunch with the family and complaining about how my hands were super dry from the endless dust/washing combo... my son suggested woodworkers should have a special cream made for them just prior to working...
I use some pink goop when working on the car. It removes every last trace of grease/grime/filth and leaves the hands smelling nice
Maybe we should use such a thing for our sport!
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19th July 2018, 01:23 AM #25GOLD MEMBER
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Yes, beeswax and mineral oil. It won't penetrate much or leave behind strange staining when you finish a project later, and it's really cheap (if you can get the wax, which is for sale - pesticide free - on ebay here for about $6 a pound plus shipping. Order two pounds, it ends up being about $20. One pint mineral oil ($3) for one pound beeswax makes a quart of mineral oil and beeswax mix: cost is $13 and about ten minutes of your time to melt the two together and stir. I am still on my first quart after almost ten years. "Burts Bees" charges about 30 times as much for the same thing, but they add some inconsequential ingredients to make it look like there's more to the product than there really is. Lips, hands, etc and from time to time, you can use it on a tool handle, too.
If a significant amount of handling dry wood is needed, then just wear gloves to prevent the drying out.
Worst dry hands I've ever seen were at a textile factory here in Pennsylvania (Sunbury Textiles) where there were 6 or 8 workers feeling the textiles as they came out of the loom - to feel for defects. The fabrics that they were making were for a high-end furniture maker in the United States (otherwise, they'd have come from China instead of Pennsylvania for consumer furniture).
The workers literally had a roll of material against their fingers all day - they were feeling the material just as it went on to the finished roll (think an effect similar to what you'd feel if you had a constant paper towel roll rolling against your hand - the fabrics were complex and three dimensional and thick - high quality, not just some cheap simple pattern). The workers' hands looked like leather from the abrasion and the oils being pulled off by the fabrics.
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20th July 2018, 11:34 PM #26Senior Member
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I knew a bloke who was a doctor and his hands needed to look the part so when he did any gardening or workshop tasks he put barrier cream on his hands and around the nails. It prevented dirt and grime getting into his nails and any rough skin. It was a bit slippery but did the job it was put on to do It might help keep detergent and soap from causing the splits. All the best.
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21st July 2018, 12:44 PM #27Member
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Yes, I have regular problems with fingers splitting, starting at the corners of my nails. The most used fingers, the index and thumb, seem to suffer the most, but the middle fingers can also be affected.
The problem comes and goes, and I suspect something in my diet exacerbates it. Haven't figured out what that is, yet.
I do know that using petroleum solvents - petrol, kero, turps, thinners, and all the volatile stuff in spray cans, appears to initiate the problem - and powdery rust and fine red dust, also contributes and exacerbates the splits.
I've never found a cream that actually works, I used Bandaids for healing attempts.
Bandaids do work, they keep the crap out of the split and keep the split moist - but the problem is trying to keep Bandaids on, in such awkward positions on the fingers.
One thing I have found, that works well - and the medics here will recoil in horror, at the mention of the product - but I have an old first aid kit from the 1980's which still contains a bottle of Mercurochrome!
Now, Mercurochrome is effectively banned, because it contains - yes, a Mercury compound!
However, I'll be 70 in 10 months time, and Mercurochrome hasn't killed me yet, despite the regular small doses I've been splashed with over the decades. It'll probably kill me in my late 80's or 90's, I guess.
A dab of Mercurochrome in the splits works better than anything else I've found.
I'm guessing it has something to do with the antiseptic abilities of Mercurochrome - or perhaps the deficiency of Mercury in my diet, thanks to the Greens policies of removing all traces of Mercury from our world.
I use a variety of gloves to try and protect my hands, but this doesn't seem to help, and often seems to make the splits worse.
I reckon a lot of the linings in gloves contain enough dastardly Chinese chemicals that make Mercury look positively benevolent.
The worst ones seem to be the riggers leather gloves (which are pigskin, because the Chinese have a major surplus of pig leather).
I suspect the Chinese tanning chemicals are the source of finger splits irritation - but I don't have enough proof - or a good enough lawyer - to sue them to the nth degree for my painful condition - just yet.
https://www.straightdope.com/columns...mercurochrome/
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21st July 2018, 03:59 PM #28
I'd reckon that some boring old urea based product would be just as effective.
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21st July 2018, 07:18 PM #29GOLD MEMBER
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Anyone used lanolin? Ever seen a shearer’s hands? Good stuff!
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22nd July 2018, 11:53 PM #30New Member
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All sound like good regimes to try long term. I also have to deal with it all the time.
I am a miniature/modelmaker and I have a method that most don't believe when they see it but I use what is always around - cyanoacrylate glue. Works on cuts too.
It stops both the sensitivity and bleeding instantly. I maintain a coating of that for a couple of days so it can heal and it comes off when it is ready. This is what it was actually developed for anyway.
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