Remembering to Protect My Skin From Chemicals

For years I was a private housekeeper. When I first started working as a housekeeper, I would clean individual houses for people. The last eight years of being a private housekeeper was spent cleaning a mansion belonging to one individual family. I had psoriasis long before doing this type of work.

Since the psoriasis had cleared on my hands, it was nothing for me to do the work without wearing gloves. Honestly, I never thought about it at all. However, once again psoriasis is breaking out on my hands. While I am not a private housekeeper anymore, I am growing increasingly aware that I should be using gloves in everything I do. I cover up other areas of my skin where psoriasis is present. Why do I risk exposing my psoriatic hands to harsh chemicals that could have a bad effect?

Cleaning my own home

Everyone wants a clean house. I want the same. All those years spent cleaning for others, I want my house looking just as good and clean. While psoriatic arthritis has made doing this more challenging, I do what I can when I can.

Making it more challenging is the active psoriasis patches that are now on my hands. Washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, mopping floors all call for using some kind of chemical to make sure it is done properly. Do you think about what dish soap you use to wash dishes? Do you look at what chemicals are in that dish soap? How about what you use to clean your bathroom with? Because of my hands this is a concern for those chemicals getting into my psoriasis. I hate using gloves. While it stops those chemicals from having contact with my psoriasis it makes my hands sweat

What about outside projects

Yesterday I painted a table that I intend to take to my son for his new home. I caught myself not having gloves on my hands probably about 30 minutes into the project. By this point, I already had paint on my hands because I was using a spray paint. If you have ever used a spray paint, then you know it is next to impossible not to get paint on your hands. Sure enough, paint was across an area of psoriasis which brought me great concern. Even though I washed it off fairly quickly I have to worry that I might get an infection from it. If I had only been wearing gloves this would not be a concern.

While I have not had an infection on my hand psoriasis plaques, I have had an infection on my psoriasis on my leg before. It took two rounds of medication to clear it up. You would think that would be enough to remind me that I need to protect myself. With that being said as much as I need to protect myself, I want to also caution you. Please think about any chemical exposure when it comes to psoriasis. Having psoriasis is bad enough without having to battle some infection on top of it.