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Post by weejock on Mar 7, 2012 13:41:44 GMT
Hey all,
My girlfriend and I have both noticed that we have very dry skin on our hands recently, particularly on the areas around our knuckles and in between our fingers. We don't normally suffer from dry skin or eczema or anything similar, and are wondering if it has anything to do with feeding/handling our new degus or perhaps handling their food/bedding when cleaning the cage.
Has anybody else had similar problems? I've asked uncle google but can't find any useful information relating to people having dry skin (loads of advice for degus with dry skin but theirs is fine!). Maybe life will just have to include hand moisturiser from now on.
Many thanks for any help.
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Post by Ady on Mar 7, 2012 14:25:36 GMT
Hello,
I don't know about any skin condition caused by goos.
Do you usually wash your hands after you handle you goos? Maybe you just wash your hands more often now you have degus, which leads to dry skin. Or when you clean their cage, maybe you use some strong cleaner that can dry your hands?
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ava
Burrowing Degu
Posts: 215
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Post by ava on Mar 7, 2012 14:30:18 GMT
Not the same problem, but I have noticed after touching hay and then touching my eyes makes them ich really bad (and far as I know I don't have hayfever).
Oh, another thought - do you wash your hands every time after handling them or doing stuff in their cage? It's just that washing your hands a lot causes dry skin too (or makes it worse).
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Post by yasmin on Mar 7, 2012 17:00:04 GMT
Moisturizer and rubber gloves...
I definitely experience this: Very dry hands especially after cleaning my degus. I chalk it up to their urine – that stuff seems to be highly corrosive. And as Ady stated, the cleaners and handwashing also contributes to this. I now make sure I wear rubber gloves when using cleaning the cages. It seems to have helped the problem a bit.
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Tiiyn
Foraging Degu
Posts: 103
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Post by Tiiyn on Mar 7, 2012 19:36:44 GMT
I have always had really bad dry hands, and the weird weather at the moment has really been making this worse at the moment.
I would agree that if you're washing your hands more often and such this can make them worse (I noticed a drastic decline in my hands after starting a full time horse job... because guess what... I'd started washing my hands 2 or 3 times as much).
Moisturiser should help, or if it's really bad - E45 soap. The soap is sadly expensive, and honestly... weird (it doesn't foam, so it just feels slimy), but after getting to the point where my hands would literally hurt anytime they were dry I bit the bullet and forced myself to use the stuff, and for the couple of months I used it I noticed such an improvement. (Which I have now ruined again, because I ran out of the soap, and can't justify the expense of buying more right now).
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Post by weejock on Mar 7, 2012 23:30:26 GMT
Hmm.. I think it might have something to do with the increase in hand-washing you know; I hadn't thought of that before. I went out today and invested in some good hand moisturiser so, hopefully, we'll see an improvement in a week or so. I'm a secondary school science teacher so my hands see a fair bit of chemical-based abuse. Despite that I never usually have any problems with my skin but I guess soap must be my kryptonite! Yasmin, I had thought it might have something to do with their urine. I've never noticed them actually peeing on me whilst they're out but, seeing as a couple of them love to run all over my arms and shoulders, I'm guessing it must happen at least a little. Moisturising soap and hand cream all the way! Very manly  EDIT:Nice, nourishing soap and some good hand-moisturiser have solved the problem; we both have lovely soft skin again. |
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Post by deguconvert on Mar 14, 2012 2:52:07 GMT
Next thing you know you'll be sitting in a chair getting a manicure . . . .  |
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Post by weejock on Mar 20, 2012 22:52:24 GMT
There might be no need for a manicure: the degus seem to like nibbling on my nails in the eternally optimistic hope that they'll become food one day.
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Post by parisng on Mar 23, 2012 23:20:32 GMT
i get this too! i thought it was from their sharp claws :s
quite annoying really :/
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Post by malteser60 on Apr 2, 2012 15:06:55 GMT
I also get dry skin quite badly. For me though I already have really dry skin, inherited, however handling the degus makes it a lot worse. I'm not sure what it is, whether it's the bedding, or their pee, or them scratching me. I know I react quite a bit to their scratches, and wonder whether it's a secondary side effect. Moisture helps a lot, although with me it's never enough, but I'm used to it.
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Post by deguconvert on Apr 2, 2012 20:38:17 GMT
When I get scratches from the degus (how can they be avoided?) I wash my hands and then spray them with Bactine as soon as I am finished playing with them. I have found that this greatly reduces my reactions to the scratches. I do this especially on my torso, as I would walk around with these red, greatly inflamed scratches showing above my shirts and all up my neck and I looked AWFUL! I got tired of friends gasping and asking what had happened whenever they saw me. LOL! The Bactine works really well to cleanse and calm the reactions.
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Post by malteser60 on Apr 2, 2012 23:21:15 GMT
I'm googling to see whether Bactine is available in the UK.
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