cracked skin....superglue is the answer

[Pete.]

When work is busy or I do a lot of wire sawing my hands suffer terribly with cracking. What I do is put a real good dollop of E45 all over my hands then wear a pair of disposable inspection gloves under my work gloves for an afternoon. A few hours of that and the dead skin rubs right off leaving your hands baby-soft and pink again.

 

[octo0072000]

Best thing for heavily cracked hands is a long soak in hot water with a little Bleach. Keep rubbing the problem areas with a pumice or such, it cleans the crap out and breaks down the dead skin.

Just be careful the first time I did this was after I was told I wasn't going anywhere near someone's lady garden until I had clean hands I put too much Bleach in and nearly ended up with two more throbbing stumps

and i thought it was only mechanics with greasy paws that got told off for that nothing like throbbing stumps

 

[TechnicAl]

Superglue as we know it today was developed as a joint collaboration between British Steel and Loctite.

BS wanted to find a way to use stainless steel tube instead of copper tube for domestic plimbing. They approached loctite and they set up a research project.

I was involved but only as a skivvy

I was about 18 years old so you can imagine what happened when you have access to 5 gallon drums of instant setting glue

Actually there may have been some sort of super glue previous but this project introduced it to the market.......except for gluing st st tube

 

[Fergus]

Glue is basic stuff, I much prefer staples nowadays. Most A&E nurses can stick a major knife wound back together with steristrips and glue, heads get stapled because it's more fun. I ask the nurses what to do most of the time.

Very rare that the junior doctor comes along and stitches something together nowwadays, which is why they are rubbish at it, unlike old school A&E Consultants like me!

A few years ago I accused my now retired colleague of being old school, and he nearly hit me. Nowadays, at the age of 41 I know I learned from a different school. As to whether the glue is really different, it's all cyano-acrylate glue, the medical stuff is blue and costs £20 a tube, superglue is white and costs a lot less. Who knows if it is different other than the colour!

The main difference that I'm aware of is that formaldehyde is used as a preservative in non-medical glue. The medical glue lacks this which is why it's generally kept refrigerated. The stuff we use is clear just like 'normal' cyano acrylate and costs around £7 a tube. I'd suggest looking at Medlogic if you want to save some money in the department.

I can suture to a reasonable standard but don't get the practice simply because I can safely close 95% of the wounds that I leave in the community with steristrips and glue. The ones that usually need suturing tend to fulfil the criteria for a trip to Hospital.

 

[mike os]

something I have used for years....must be getting on 20 or so, used a lot when I used to climb for nicks & splits in fingertips, glue the occasional nail back on... still not had any drop off so must be ok.

 

[drjim]

The main difference that I'm aware of is that formaldehyde is used as a preservative in non-medical glue. The medical glue lacks this which is why it's generally kept refrigerated. The stuff we use is clear just like 'normal' cyano acrylate and costs around £7 a tube. I'd suggest looking at Medlogic if you want to save some money in the department.

I can suture to a reasonable standard but don't get the practice simply because I can safely close 95% of the wounds that I leave in the community with steristrips and glue. The ones that usually need suturing tend to fulfil the criteria for a trip to Hospital.

£20 was a guesstimate to make a point whilst under influence of malt whisky however the surgical glue is massively more expensive than it ought to be, simply because it CAN be.

 

[Country Joe]

however the surgical glue is massively more expensive than it ought to be, simply because it CAN be.

Quite right there, Doc!
I've have bought both medical regulators, and normal industrial regulators for oxygen, and the medical type seem to be about 5-7 times more expensive.
It seems all medical equipment is more expensive than it needs to be, for no explicable reason!
All the Best,
CJ

 

[Shox Dr]

It seems all medical equipment is more expensive than it needs to be, for no explicable reason!
All the Best,
CJ

Two words...


Liability Insurance

 

[johnakay]

for cracked dry fingers I rub caster oil on it and usually OK by the second day.
removing excess dry skin help to.

 

[drjim]

Liability insurance is part of it, but there's also excessive regulation and red tape plus greedy suppliers, semi-incompetent purchasing and hungry salesmen.

An example - I met a guy who had invented something to stop people connecting peoples oxygen masks to the air flowmeter by accident (we need both). It consisted of a little piece of flat plastic with air written on it hinged on a collar that screwed onto the flowmeter so you had to move it out of the way to connect the tubing. Having just dealt with a critical incident where someone had been given air instead of oxygen it was just what we needed. However it took almost a year before he could supply it to anyone because of regulations etc, even checking the font used to write the word AIR. Daft.

 

[metalspanner]

You know when your hands are so dry that you can rub paintwork down with them and then they go past this and your skin starts to split, you get those little splits near your thumbnails and finger nails that are only tiny but deep and painful, you try to pick something small up or press a button or something like it and its agony.....well, try this, it works a treat for me but you have to be careful, just drop a tiny bit of superglue in there and hold the crack shut for a few seconds, theres a couple of seconds of pain and then bingo, your finger or thumb is back to being fully functional and pain free.

do it carefully though or you will be down at casualty with your hands glued together, i use the wifes eyebrow tweezers to hold the crack shut while the glue sets, i believe that superglue ( cynoacrylate adhesive ) was developed during the vietnam war to bond flesh wounds in the field.

Doing some wiring on the disco today and as you do holding the end of the flex and cutting with a knife to expose the internal cores, went a bit to far and put a nice slash in my index finger
Got a tube of superglue and just stuck it to together, much quicker than going on a 30 mile round trip to aande, it could really do with a stitch or 3 but I will go and get some steristrip from the chemists tomorrow and glue them on, job done.

Only thing is immobilise and keep dry and you wont have a problem, oh and keep clean (yeah right) if it is a clean wound with nothing embedded in it and it has bled profusely then self treatment is quite OK.
And superglue is brilliant for this purpose.