I’ve had skin problems ever since coming to Taiwan but one is persistent and doesn’t seem to be curable. The changes in diet and getting more sleep/reducing stress etc. have solved one problem but the itchy hands are driving me crazy. Every dermatologist I’ve been to has told me it’s a contact dermatitis and to stop using soap. (This was interesting to hear during the SARS outbreak!) Locals tell me this is “fu gui shou” rich mans hand and everyone has a theory of course, none of which seems to work. I stopped using all manner od detergent soap etc, washing powder, using plastic gloves to do the dishes and still the problem persists. It looks like some kind of pus coming up and breaking out above the skin and is incredibly itchy. The doctors give me some steroids and (and tell me not to wash) cream which fix the problem for a short time and then it returns. even the traditional Chinese medicine hasn’t worked. Aloe vera or rubbing with ice alleviates the itching for a short time.
I’ve racked my brains trying to think what could be vcausing it. There is a nagging suspicion that the doctors all went to the same school and simply learn wrong. Any advice?
Hi, I have been in Taiwan nearly four years. Christmas 2002, I had something similar appear. Most strange as I had had no allergies or reactions before. Tried everything to get rid of it like changing diet to extremely healthy food, loads of fruit, salads… still no change for the better. But the one thing I remember changing when it went away about 10 months later was that I changed back to wearing cotton fabrics and leather shoes. Might help to know this but who really knows? It just went away one day and hasn’t come back since (and it was getting really worrying too and Doctors didn’t help either). It might be the changes in the weather, stress, anything. Good luck!
I have had exactly the same problems in the past, in fact I’ve had it on & off since I was a teenager. Calendula cream is THE best thing - also marshmallow cream - mixing the two is just a dream. Having steroid shots and using the creams only made mine worse, it spread and cracked all the skin on both sides of my hands. The other thing that seems to relieve the pain is soaking your hands in green tea, it soothes the skin and takes the irritation down for awhile. I hope this helps! Good luck.
I have had exactly the same problems in the past, in fact I’ve had it on & off since I was a teenager. Calendula cream is THE best thing - also marshmallow cream - mixing the two is just a dream. Having steroid shots and using the creams only made mine worse, it spread and cracked all the skin on both sides of my hands. The other thing that seems to relieve the pain is soaking your hands in green tea, it soothes the skin and takes the irritation down for awhile. I hope this helps! Good luck.
I am curious when you say this. There have been several properly-conducted studies that have shown traditional Chinese medicine to have a beneficial effect on some skin problems. In TCM theory, this good effect could be very long-lasting or permanent (because TCM is supposed to treat the cause- inner imbalances) although I’m not sure how long the studies lasted for.
What did you try? Did you go to a qualified TCM doctor, have a full diagnosis and follow a course of treatment for several months? Or did you just buy something over a counter?
I’m not saying that TCM is a definite answer for your problem, just that if you try it, make sure you give it a proper chance. Anyway, DB’s advice above seems a good idea for immediate symptom relief.
Sounds like it is contact dermatitis. You are reacting to the proteins in what you put on your hands. You have to quit irritating your hands otherwise it gets worse. The little blisters are more or less indicating the layers under your skin are reacting. I would think you are getting at least a little sweliing. The next step is that the sub layer under it all swells up from with fluid and thats no fun at all, very painful.
I’m not a medical sort, however I have dealt with it myself and in my case my hands would swell up twice their size. Not at all pleasant and very painful. I have pretty much been able to steer myself clear of most problems, but it takes diligence.
Biggest step, don’t scratch…don’t even think of it. It’s the hardest thing…you can press to move fluid from the swelling around, but nothing else. You iritate it and you can set off a reaction you wouldn’t believe. You gotta get your mind over the itch.
Medical Step…get a skin allergy patch test. They might not even have them in Taiwan. They put a hundred or so little patches on your back and check after a week to see what you’ve reacted to. It’s expensive in the US and insurance didn’t take care of it for me.
Check to see if you are using latex gloves…very important…a latex sensitivity is very different beast. You must handle this one differently.
If you are actually allergic to something you just have to isolate yourself from that. It’s not that you have to get the least toxic soap or handcreme, it’s that you are using a product that contans that which is setting the whole reaction off.
Whelp, ya got lucky…I happen to get to thinking about chemical combos and so I looked up a handy reference:
Allergic contact dermatitis dermnetnz.org/index.html
You can find the terminology for
Irritant contact dermatitis, Hand Dermatitis, & Urticaria(that’s what you want to avoid by doing something about it)
i had skin allergies for years after coming to taiwan Weilong, I was convinced I would die with it. after countless doctors tests advice finally figured it out on my own–i had got into the habit of belting down glass after glass of Chinese tea every day. that was it for me. stopped the tea, ended the problem. had a relatively minor recurrence recently that i traced to the plastic handle of a valise i had been using for too long i guess.
more than one doctor told me it was a contact allergy as well, which in the end seemed not to be the case. keep trying to think of what it is, its gotta be something, in the end for me it was something that seemed totally innocuous. i mean, i racked my brains like you couldn’t believe. people told me countless things to avoid. but tea never occured to me and no one ever mentioned it as a possibility. i only figured it out by accident.
tried Chinese medicine but that only seemed to make it worse!!
Skin problems are incredibly common in Taiwan. I assume that’s due to a combination of the severe pollution and the hot, humid weather.
My wife gets a rash on her hands. She can’t stop scratching it, which makes it look quite awful. She’s gone to many doctors about it, but none of their treatments or suggestions seems to do much good.
I, too, after having had a perfect skin all my life, including more than a dozen years in Taiwan, suddenly developed a bad rash in the summer about four or five years ago. It started on my elbows, spread down the underside of my arms to the wrist, and then began to appear in patches on the back of my thighs and elsewhere. It was very itchy and unpleasant looking, and caused me a great deal of bother. I got rid of it from all but my arms quite quickly, but seem to be stuck with it there, where it always reappears when the weather gets hot and sticky, when I spend a few hours in the pollution of downtown Taipei, or when I have very sweaty sex. When the weather gets cold, it all but disappears, but breaks out again at the first opportunity. When I went to England for just a week in the summer, it cleared up in a trice, but returned almost as soon as I got back here. So I’ve concluded that I’ll just have to learn to put up with it for as long as I remain in Taiwan, doing my best to avoid situations that’ll cause it to flare up and applying ointment to check it when it does appear. I do, however, entertain the hope that, if one day I can go to live in some relatively unpolluted place like Hualien, maybe that’ll be enough to get rid of it altogether.
I hope Weilong can find something that helps soon.
This is not nearly as serious, but last August I had a funny kind of skin thing. There were no bumps or spots or anything, but all the skin was red, and I had a strong prickling sensation like little needles or electricity. I had it basically all over my body, but especially my torso. Has anybody experienced anything like that before? It was better after a few days.
Sounds like a very typical rash. The symptoms you describe are an exact match for one I had twice . . . at Boy Scout camp in Wisconsin in 1976 and 1977.
IIRC, it was fungal. Check with a doctor to be sure. If something like that doesn’t disappear on its own PDQ, you might try a topical cream like Nizoral or another azole – I seem to remember Watson’s carrying that in a dandruff shampoo, which might also be a possibility. If it’s fungal – and be very sure before going this route – you might also try a systemic like Diflucan (very hard on your liver; you’d need to get some tests done before using it, and if you use it for more than a few days, you’d want periodic tests).
In reply to Omniloquacious’ mail. Yep you are right. I have the same problem . When the summer humid comes, the rashes appear. Doctor had told me once that it was a fungus–no matter what I do it always manages to reappear. Apparently it is activated mainly from sweat.
So what kind of skin cream do you use? As I hate wasting my time going to a specialist who will then tell me it is a fungus and then gives me a little tube that lasts around 2 weeks only.
So would appreciate it on what creams you use and where I can buy them.
I use Gentaderm cream (in Chinese, Kangtefu: kang from jiankang, meaning healthy; te from tebie, meaning special; and fu from pifu, meaning skin). It’s manufactured by Purzer Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. You should be able to buy it across the counter at any reasonably well stocked pharmacy. If I remember correctly, it costs NT$180 for a 15gm tube. As you are only supposed to apply very tiny amounts, a tube that size lasts me half a year.
It works well enough for me, so I haven’t tried any others. There may well be others that are better than it, but it’s probably worth starting with that one to see if it does the trick. If you do give it a try, I hope you’ll find it effective.
About a couple years ago I developed a minor but persistent rash on my nose and cheeks. I find liberal applications of hydrogen peroxide help a great deal. Itches like mad for a few minutes, but one application before bedtime for a couple days in a row and I wake up with delightfully silky skin. Don’t know anything about the science behind this, but it seems to work for me.
Well I finally bit the bullet and visited the hospital to get another course of medication and the same old advice. Stop using soap, don’t drink and don’t eat seafood. My claims that I’ve tried all this were met with sympathetic nods, “Pick up you meds at the counter…next please” They gave me an injection as well this time.
It’s a nuisance giving us stuff you like and it not having any appreciable effect! So far I’ve been warned off, Mangoes, lychees, bamboo shoots, alcohol, coffee, seafood, fried food, soap (externally that is) taro.
I have wondered if the ink in the local newspapers are causing an effect, or if it could be the cell phone. I never had these problems back on Beetelgeuse.
I’ve been really enjoying living in Taipei since I moved back in August. But since December I’ve been experiencing this rash and it doesn’t seem to go away. It is a real bummer and I’ve been feeling really depressed. As people commented before, I’ve never experienced any skin problems or allergies, this is all new to me. Doctor said it was a mosquito bite that caused allergy, followed the treatment and nothing happened. Now I’m seeing a Chinese medicine doctor and when things seemed to be going somewhere, I started feeling bad again. My legs looks terrible and I am very ashamed of sporting a skirt. Taiwan please bring my dignity back.
I followed some of your advice and put a filter in the shower and stopped drinking tea. Hope it works. Weilong I feel you!
Anyone heard of “Demodex Folliculitis” or been diagnosed with it?
These mites are found in human hair follicles, normally found in greater numbers around the cheeks, nose, eyebrows, eyelashes, and forehead. They could also be found in other parts of the body such as arms, chest, and ears. It is a species of tiny mites that have been thought to contribute to hair loss (though this hypothesis is under debate)[5] and lives in pores and hair follicles. The mites vary in size from 0.1 mm to 0.4 mm long.[6] Mites do not invade internal organs. Under normal conditions, they are not harmful, and classified as commensals (the mite benefits but there is no harm or benefit to the host) rather than parasites (where the host is harmed), though under outbreak conditions (demodicosis) they can be harmful.
A 2014 study found that 100% of people over age 18 in the study had mite DNA on their faces, suggesting that the mites are universal inhabitants of adult humans.