Dyingman 48: First Blood

Every year it happens, but I forget over the intervening 11 months so it catches me by surprise every time.
This year, I was reaching for something stacked on the kitchen counter and my hand shot out a little too high.  It caught the handle of the cabinet and tore a pea-sized sheet of my skin away.
It didn't hurt, but I was struck anew by the fragility of the human body.
Skin minus water equals tissue paper.
It was winter, cold, and DRY.
And I had followed suit.
Fortunately, as I said, I've been through this before.  In previous years, I'd start to notice tiny lines of blood appearing on my knuckles.  My skin would painlessly crack because my dry skin lacked the flexibility to stretch over my fists and capillaries under the skin would break and the blood would fill the cracks.
It was lotion time.
Exposure to the air causes moist things to dry out.  Witness laundry on a clothes line or a puddle in the parking lot disappearing over the course of a day.  The skin does not defy physics.
The connective tissue between cells, interstitial material, is a thick liquid with fibers connecting cells together.  It makes the individual cells of our skin into a sheetlike material.  Remove the moisture from this areas between cells unprotected by a fatty cell membrane and you expose the fibers to air which can oxidize the proteins (burn them) and they break.  If a more thorough and accurate analysis of skin dessication is offered by a medical professional, I'll gladly correct this overview, but the point is, dry skin cracks.
Putting lotion on dry hands seals in the skin from further exposure to dry air and helps a little but just as air can penetrate dry cracked skin and make things worse, soaking your hands in a sink of warm water or taking a bath or shower exposes the same cells and intercellular medium to water and moisturizes the area.
If you put the lotion on AFTER a bath or a good soak, you then seal the WATER in with your skin and allow the fibers to remain intact as the body reconstructs new fibers to allow your skin to strengthen and heal.
In the event you suffer from cracked, bleeding knuckles as the cold snaps begin, put some lotion on your hands after you get out of the shower in the morning and watch the remarkable results.
Lotion companies don't seem to suggest this in their advertising.  Perhaps it's on purpose as putting lotion on dry hands rather than wet isn't as effective and you'll use more lotion.  Perhaps that's paranoid but given the tendency of pharmaceutical companies to gloss over the wretched side effects of their products, should we attribute nobler goals than money making to manufacturers' of more commonplace remedies to less serious health complaints?

Sorry for the long gap between posts, death fans.  The holidays have me busier than I'd like.  Work has provided overtime opportunities that I'd be unwise to turn down lest they fail to offer them in the future when I really need them.  Dyingwife has also needed extra help around the house and with school issues and activities with the dyingkids.  I don't expect delays like this after the New Year.  As always, thanks for reading my blog again.


        * DM

        Next:  Envisioning a Sudden End to the Dyingman blog.

        Fitness Goals:
        60 beats per minute resting pulse.
        15 minutes cycling.
        Weights: 3 days - 100 lbs. - 6 cycles of 5,5,5,10 repetitions (2 cycles/day)


        Current Fitness Record: (since last entry)
        Pulse: 60 beats per minute (unconfirmed)
        0 min cycling
        1 day - 65 lbs. - 2 cycles - 10,5,5,5

        Blood Pressure:  125/69  11-2007

            RECENT SYMPTOMS : acute right knee pain when running
            ONGOING SYMPTOMS:   Slight pain in right knee when kneeling and shifting knee to the right.  Hyperhidrosis.
            DIAGNOSIS: Dry skin, tooth bone loss with pocketing of gum, Unknown injury to right knee, possible impact from small stumble onto landing of concrete stairs.

            ONGOING TREATMENT:  Moisturizer. Tri-Annual dental visits.

        DRUG REGIMEN:  Aspartame.  (3 diet sodas daily)  Caffeine (three cups of coffee daily.  One cola.)
        PROGNOSIS FOR FOLLOWING WEEK:     Slow improvement of knee.  Good health.
        POTENTIAL TREATMENTS:  Fish Oil supplements.  Leafy greens.  Exercise (See Fitness Goals and Record)  Axillary curettage.

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