What Are These Little Itchy Blisters on My Fingers?

Do  you ever scroll through various social media platforms and strike gold?

I follow a hospital on social media that posts photos and symptoms of a medical condition, and asks people to come up with a diagnosis. Ninety-nine percent of the time I have NO idea what they're talking about. Even when I scroll down through the answers from doctors, I have to search the medical term online to figure out what they mean.

There has only been one time I knew what the diagnosis was, and it's because I have the medical condition. They showed a photo of someone with a bent middle finger, and said it can be painful to straighten. Aha, I know that one! I felt like Hermione Granger raising my hand at Hogwarts because I knew the answer.

They were talking about "trigger finger," where your finger gets stuck in a bent position. If you can manage to straighten it, it will let out a sudden "snap or pop" sounding like a trigger. It's definitely painful, and I have already had one steroid injection in the bottom joint of that finger to reduce the pain and swelling and allow me to straighten it. I joked to the hand specialist that at least my middle finger wasn't stuck UPRIGHT - so it looked like I was giving everyone The Bird.

I look at the hospital's social media account every day, and have no idea how to interpret the X-rays, photos, or symptoms of the mystery medical condition. But, I keep following the account so I can learn.

Imagine my surprise when I saw photos of a hand with tiny itchy blisters on the fingers. I actually recognized that because I have had that happen to me off and on for years. I would try to describe it to my doctor, but he would just shrug his shoulders when I asked him what it was.

I quickly scrolled down through the comments about the itchy blisters from the various doctors and they all said the same thing. It was...wait for it...dyshidrotic eczema. What the what??¹

What is dyshidrotic eczema?

That was my reaction. Huh?! I took a screenshot so I could look up the condition. I knew I would never find the post again.

I have had eczema most of my life, but it only seems to flare up at really inconvenient times (like when eczema popped up on my face on my wedding day). But I had no idea that those tiny little itchy bumps were a type of eczema! My college-aged daughter gets them too, and asked me what they were. 'Cause moms know everything, right? I had no idea – until now.

My dyshidrotic eczema only pops up every few years. And now that I know it's a type of eczema, I'll treat it with a hydrocortisone cream.

I'm all for scrolling through social media as a stress reliever, especially when I see videos of tiny kittens being bottle-fed. But mixed in with my feed is the hospital page, where I look each day to learn something new.

Has anyone heard of this before? Or did I help you find out something new?