Dear Doctor,
I have the following issue. I live in Southern California, which has a very dry climate. It gets especially bad in the winter. Every winter the skin on my hands, and especially knuckles, gets super dry and starts to crack, sometimes even bleed. I am usually able to control this by applying moisturizing cream to the affected area, but this winter it got really bad on the index finger knuckle on my right hand. It had several deep, bleeding cracks, so instead of using regular moisturizing cream, I started applying Neosporin ointment in order to prevent infection. I have been doing this for about 3 months now, and it did not help to heal the cracks. Actually it looks like the whole top of the knuckle got covered with red crust with deep cracks – looks like a large wound. When I let it dry it starts burning. When I wash it with warm water it starts itching. I made a photograph of the affected area, to see it please click this link: http://img4.immage.de/1005dsc05254.jpg
I did some research and it looks like this may be an eczema (I also have asthma and many articles say that two usually coincide with each other) but I can not be sure, since I am not a medical professional (I wish I was).
Please advise. Thank you in advance.
http://img4.immage.de/1005dsc05254.jpg