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Anyone Have This Type Of Gluten-related Dry Skin Reaction

Nantzie

By Nantzie
in Dermatitis Herpetiformis

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Nantzie Collaborator
Nantzie
Posted

If I get exposed to gluten I get a weird dry skin reaction. It's a mirror image reaction on both hands. There's a line that goes at a diagonal across my wrist, and then goes up to the knuckles at the base of my fingers and thumb, and the rest of my fingers are fine.

The skin gets extremely dry and dehydrated looking with a crepey/lizardy look to it and gets red. When I bend my hands, the skin across my knuckles splits and bleeds. It's really painful and almost burning feeling. It's just on the backs of my hands

No blisters. No itching. The skin on my fingers, palms of my hands and my arms are fine. I've never had a problem with dry skin at all, and don't even use hand lotion.

My dad used to get this same thing on his hands and we thought it was because he worked in construction and was outside all day. It wasn't until I had been gluten-free for a while that this weird reaction started showing up.

Anyone else have this?

Nancy

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Michi8 Contributor
Michi8
Posted

I get this, and have narrowed it down to products that I wash and clean with. Dish soap, household cleaning chemicals, antibacterial soaps. I use rubber gloves when washing dishes and doing household cleaning, and wash my hands with plain soap & water. Sometimes it's impossible to avoid using irritating soaps (such as in a public restroom) and my hands instantly get red & dry which leads to splits/cracks and bleeding. My reaction has also become more severe where I get deep splits on the ends of my fingers.

Michelle

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Nantzie Collaborator
Nantzie
  • Author
Posted

It's not chemical-related, although it does look and feel a lot like that. I had that happen once and it does remind me of exactly that.

It's definitely gluten though. You can actually watch it happen. My skin will go from being totally fine to all weird looking within an hour. It just kind of shrivels up and gets all dry. Very weird. <_<

Nancy

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Michi8 Contributor
Michi8
Posted
It's not chemical-related, although it does look and feel a lot like that. I had that happen once and it does remind me of exactly that.

It's definitely gluten though. You can actually watch it happen. My skin will go from being totally fine to all weird looking within an hour. It just kind of shrivels up and gets all dry. Very weird. <_<

Nancy

I wouldn't be surprised if it is connected to gluten...I do know it's tied into my sensitivities and allergies. In terms of my possible gluten sensitivity...I don't know for sure yet. I'm still in the testing stages, and don't hold much hope for getting a definitive answer, because the tests I have had done may have been incorrect (biopsy from the wrong site for DH test, only 1 biopsy taken during endoscopy). My skin issues seem to come and go...almost cyclical. I'm hoping that my gluten free trial will give me better answers.

For you, is it possible that, though it is connected to gluten exposure, there may be another trigger involved...a trigger that works in conjunction to glutening?

Michelle

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Nantzie Collaborator
Nantzie
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Posted

Yea, it's totally possible, but it's become a semi-regular part of my glutening symptom complex. The rest of my body says that I'm glutened - headache, mood changes, GI issues, pain etc. But it might be that I've been glutened and ALSO "xyz'd" with some as yet unidentified thing.

Nancy

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest starmiller
Guest starmiller
Posted

Hi. I have exactly what you have described on the hands. It is totally related to gluten. I can accidentally eat some gluten and watch it happen within 15 minutes. My husband watches too. The attacks last about two hours. Little blisters appear and the intense itching begins! It has kept me awake at night and I have had open sores on my hands. I am a massage therapist and had to get this under control right away. Dapsone is not an option at this time. The side effects really concern me. I found that being gluten-free for two months has kept the blisters under control but still have a daily episode. I can't figure out why except that my body is doing a cleanse. I am going to try removing all dairy and iodine after reading some of these postings. But since going gluten-free (at least getting through the learning curve), my hands are much better and I sleep all night also.

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jnclelland Contributor
jnclelland
Posted

I have something like this, although mine is itchy, and it's just on my right hand, which I've always thought was weird! It's much better off gluten, but gluten isn't the only thing that triggers it. Soy does it too - in fact, that's just about the only symptom I get from soy. Sometimes it flares up and I have no idea why.

Jeanne

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