Cracks on the Ends of My Fingers

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

January 5, 2014

Winter is finally here and I have a crack in the skin at the end of the fourth finger on my sound hand.  Every time the end of my finger contacts an object the crack opens painfully.  I wash my hand so often I have no natural oil in my skin.  In previous winters I have worn a rubber glove to bed after slathering my hand with many types of lotion. This only slows down the drying process.

I felt desperate when the end of my fourth finger cracked open because I knew my thumb was next.  It develops an even bigger crack which is even more painful.

I Googled paraffin bath because warm wax softens the skin.  On-line users said it takes 6 hours for the wax to melt.  To prevent burns, the heating element is too weak to melt the wax quickly.  This means leaving the unit on 24 hours a day to keep the wax liquid.  I already run up my winter electric bill by turning on Christmas lights and using a warm air vaporizer 6 hours a night.  Then there were users who said wax leaked out of the bottom of their unit.  Since I live alone there is no "Honey do" at my house.  Fortunately, one of my on-line searches for paraffin baths captured a hand cream that contains paraffin so I bought it.

Bath and Body Works makes a product called True Blue Super Softening Hand Lotion with paraffin.  The sandpaper rough skin on the end of my thumb disappeared after one application.

It took 5 days for the crack on my fourth finger to close up after using one small dab the size of a pea each day.  This is good because the lotion costs $12 for a 2.5 fluid ounce tube.

I let the lotion sink in after I go to bed at night.  I put a dab of lotion on the back of my hemiplegic hand and get into bed with a small towel and the remote that turns off my ceiling light.  I put the remote next to my sound thigh and cover it with the towel.  After I transfer the lotion to my sound hand, I press on the remote through the towel to turn off the lights and lay my hand on the towel. This is so much easier than using my teeth to wrestle a rubber glove on and off my sound hand.  My hemiplegic hand is an assistive hand, but I need all five fingers working on my sound hand.

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Cracks on the Ends of My Fingers

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