Skin/Palm/Nail Involvement

Okay - how do I make this brief...  

Had a palm rash off and on for years - sounds similar to other emails you've said were Dish..."sweaty" excema.  (Small bumps, cracking skin on fingertips)

However, the rash on palms has been "on" all the time since I have developed (in last 6-12 months) thick, yellow toenails on both feet as well a few fingernails on both hands. And if that wasn't pleasant enough...I also have a skin rash that develops on my arms when I come into direct contact with plastic...bandaids, grocery bags - it leaves a rash with raised small bumps in irregular patterns that disappears pretty quickly and is only slightly itchy.  The longer the contact to plastic - the worse the rash.  Am I allergic to plastic all of a sudden?

Is this all just bad luck...the excema, fungal infection of nails, bizarre allergy to plastic or could all of this be an external sign of an internal problem?

I was presribed some steroidal cream for the palm rash a while back but it doesn't really do anything...any ideas??

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Not really.  I can't think of any diagnosis which would link all these symptoms together.  I should add that yellow toenails are not necessarily fungal--nails can turn yellow just from trauma, shoes, etc.The bandaid rash is probably just blocked follicles that can't "breathe" when the plastic covers the skin, not a true allergy.  I suspect that you just have mild hand eczema, and that other symptoms are unimportant and unrelated, certainly not the sign of an internal problem.

Please ask you doctor about other treatments for hand eczema, if it continues to bother you.  But if your main concern is that all these things add up, I doubt that they do.

Take care.

Dr. Rockoff