Handling documents all day long in office setting, are scabs and superficial finger cuts any serious ?

Question

I keep getting scabs of skin in the fingers even if there is no cut and bleeding. Sometimes i get small microscopic cuts that i can see. My fingers are full of small little microscopic cuts now just from handling a bunch of documents.

In the long run, are these serious? or no problem? I also notice my hand skin get too dry from handling paper alot

Answer 1

You could have an allergy to the paper mix; or glue.
They make special finger cots; this could help protect you as you handle the papers.
I also was concerned about the staph info; maybe see your doctor if you have one.
Cortizone has longterm health hazards; olive oil is cheap and not only does wonders for your hands, but also your nails. If! you can wear gloves at night, do. But, I know I can't. Drives me nuts !!! Olive Oil will work regardless; buy small bottles; it doesn't go rancid rapidly; but, smaller bottles will assure this; a little bit goes a long way.
Also, hand sanitizer: dries your hands; burns cuts like crazy; etc.
Neosporin Plus is good for cuts; keep a small tube on hand at work; if you can't get grease on the papers; ask your boss if you can get gloves & see what museum people use to handle delicate papers, antique books etc. I'm sure they would tell you; or you could Google.

Answer 2

That's what the problem is, you are handling papers so much, it is pulling all the natural oils and moisture out of your hands. I used to get them all of the time when I was working and sometimes my hands would be so sore because of it. All I can suggest is to keep your hands moisturized with a good hand cream. At night before you go to bed, rub cortizone cream into your hands and then a really thick hand cream, Neutrogena makes a good one and then put gloves on your hands all night. Your hands will really feel good in the morning. Do this everynight for a week and I think you will really notice a difference.

Answer 3

I've heard of staph infections in paper cuts where the patient had to cycle through 8 degrees of potent antibiotics and almost died.

No Shtt-- I think I saw it on 20/20 about 2-3 years ago.

Answer 4

It probably won't hurt you but it would probably be a good idea for you to use a hand sanitizer now and then. If other people have handled them before you, you may be getting their germs etc. Get a sanitizer that has a softener in it as well if at all possible.

Answer 5

A paper cut occurs when a piece of paper or other thin, sharp material slices a person's skin. Paper cuts, though named from paper, can also be caused by other thin, stiff materials, such as aluminium foil, thin blades of grass, or film negatives.

Although a loose paper sheet is usually too soft to cut, it can be very thin (sometimes as thin as a razor edge), being then able to exert high levels of pressure, enough to cut the skin. Paper cuts are most often caused by paper sheets that are strongly fastened together (such as brand new paper out of a ream), because one single paper sheet might be dislocated from the rest. Thus all the other sheets are holding this dislocated sheet in position, and the very small part held away from the rest can be stiff enough to act as a razor.

Paper cuts can cause surprisingly acute pain since they usually stimulate a large number of skin surface pain receptors (nociceptors) in a very small area of the skin. Because the shallow cut does not bleed very much, the pain receptors are left open to the air, ensuring continued pain. This is exacerbated by irritation caused by the fibers in the paper itself, which may be coated in chemicals such as bleach. Additionally, most paper cuts occur in the fingers, which have a greater concentration of sensory receptors than the rest of the body.

The random orientation of collagen fibers in skin provides the ability to withstand pinpoint forces. However, skin does not have the same strength against shearing forces, and is easily cut. The same principle can be applied to performers that stand on blades.

A drop of 'liquid bandage' or equivalent onto a papercut can seal the skin to stop pain as well as prevent further opening of the wound (as is common on a location such as a finger).
The killer bug with the scary nickname - flesh-eating bacteria - uses common injuries as a foothold for infection.

A paper cut.

Rich Hicks (left) plays basketball with neighborhood friend Jared Spady during a pickup game at Hicks' home in Arlington. Hicks lost his lower left leg to a flesh-eating bacteria infection.
A nick while shaving.

A cut lip from a stumble during a basketball game.

Injuries so common that we barely take notice.

Yet, in rare cases and for reasons scientists are still trying to understand, minor cuts such as these can trigger potentially deadly infections.

Nine people in King County have died from the disease, called necrotizing fasciitis, since January.

Two of the people were from Snohomish County, said James Apa, a spokesman for Public Health Seattle and King County. Both were treated at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

One was a 35-year-old Everett woman who died Jan. 10. The other was a 41-year-old Edmonds woman who died Feb. 19, he said.

Jacob Finkbonner, a 6-year-old Whatcom County boy, was airlifted to Seattle's Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in February for treatment of the disease. His infection started with a cut inside his lip he got during a basketball game.

He spent seven weeks in the hospital's intensive care unit and was recently discharged. Doctors performed plastic surgery to repair damage the disease caused to his face and mouth.

His mother, Elsa Finkbonner, said on Friday that her son's condition is improving.

There's no evidence that the bacteria has returned.

Surgery to battle the disease has left scars on his head, neck face and chest.

The family will commute to Seattle about once a week for continuing treatments, she said.

"It's very spooky," said Dr. Craig Rubens, who as chief of pediatric infectious disease at Children's is part of the team of doctors treating Jacob. "It's seldom you see dramatic things like this in medicine.

"It's advancing at such a pace you get worried you can't keep the patient alive, let alone stop the infection."

The fever caused by necrotizing fasciitis makes it similar to generally less harmful infections. A King County man who died earlier this month was initially thought to have shingles.

One telltale trait separates necrotizing fasciitis from other health problems: The pain is seemingly far out of proportion to the injury.

"There's nothing to see," Dr. Marcia Goldoft, a medical epidemiologist with the state Department of Health, said of the ordinary look of the initial cut or scrape.

"The intensive pain is your only clue. ... By the time it's possible to know what's going on, you're struggling to save a life."

Disease hard to control

In a matter of hours, with the precision of falling dominos, the infection can trigger a chain reaction. Bacteria grow rapidly. The body's means of trying to stop the infection actually helps the bacteria destroy more tissue, said Rubens, the Children's Hospital physician.

Necrotizing means killing or dying, and fasciitis (pronounced fash-e-i-tis) refers to the fibrous tissue between the skin and muscle where the bacteria attack.

"The infection can just roar through the area," Goldoft said. "It's difficult to control."

As demonstrated by the nine deaths in King County this year, the infection can be ruthless.

The state Department of Health's Goldoft remembers hearing of one case triggered by a splinter from a fence. "It's heartbreaking that healthy people can be affected by something that seems so minor," she said.

There are no steps to prevent it, although basic hygiene such as careful hand washing and cleansing and treating cuts and scrapes is recommended.

Considering how many people cut or scrape themselves every day, the disease is extremely rare, said Dr. Yuan-Po Tu, who specializes in internal medicine at The Everett Clinic. The reason the cases get so much attention is "they're so devastating and spectacular in a bad way."

When it does strike, a red spot appears several hours after what appears to be a trivial wound, he said. Later, there's a black spot with no feeling - a sign the tissue has died.

The blackened tissue is cut away to help the body clean the bacteria out of the area, Rubens said. Antibiotics help fight the infection.

Children's patients also get hyperbaric oxygen treatments to try to prevent tissue loss, he said.

Jacob Finkbonner's injury apparently was caused when his face hit a basketball pole and he bit the inside of his lip.

"Why he got this over someone else who would have fallen the same day and in the same way is hard to say," Rubens said.

"It's one of those chance things. The bacteria get in the right place at the right time, and the body can't fight it off."

Danger in a paper cut

Last year on Mother's Day, a Lynnwood woman noticed she had a paper cut after flipping through a magazine.

There was a little blood on her index finger. She scrubbed it with soap and water.

That night, she was awakened by throbbing pain. She soaked her finger frequently to try to relieve it. The next evening, the pain returned. It was so intense she told doctors she felt like her finger was going to explode.

Three days after the initial cut, a black dot appeared on her fingertip. Within a few hours, when she sought a doctor's care, that same black dot had grown to the size of a dime and extended down her finger.

Dr. William Ericson, the Woodinville physician who treated the woman, vividly remembers her fingertip blackened with dead tissue. He rushed her into surgery.

"It was just a paper cut," Ericson said. "Within hours, it had traveled up her finger. She could have lost her finger, arm, or died."

The bacteria that caused the infection didn't necessarily come from the magazine. Doctors said it could have come from anywhere, perhaps even the door of the grocery store she had visited on Mother's Day. The cut simply provided the bacteria easy entry.

Although necrotizing fasciitis is often associated with the same kind of bacteria that causes strep throat, it can be caused by many types of bacteria, said Dr. Jo Hofmann, communicable disease epidemiologist with the state Department of Health.

No one knows exactly how many people get necrotizing fasciitis in Washington each year. It's not a disease that local and state health agencies track, because the disease rarely is spread from person to person, Hofmann said. Public health agencies usually monitor diseases where steps can be taken to stop them from spreading.

However, hospitals do report the number of discharged patients with suspected cases. In 2004, 262 people were treated in Washington hospitals for the infection.

People with weak immune systems are the most susceptible to necrotizing fasciitis, Hofmann said. This can be caused by conditions as common as diabetes or alcoholism.

Overall, about 25 percent of people who get the disease die from it, she said. Among those who are medically fragile, death rates can be as high as 76 percent.

A small price to pay

Rich Hicks can still give his 16-year-old son Patrick a run for his money in a game of basketball.

Hicks is also an avid hunter, even though he sometimes has to crawl up the steep grades of the Cascade Range on his hands and knees.

Hicks, 45, works as an estimator for an asphalt construction company in Everett. And unless he is wearing shorts for a round of golf or for chopping wood in the back yard of his Arlington home, most people can't tell from his quick, sure gait that he has an artificial left leg starting at his knee.

"It has changed some things in my life, but it hasn't kept me from doing them," he said.

Doctors amputated Hicks' leg in 1992 as the best hope for beating back an unusually aggressive case of necrotizing fasciitis.

It was small price to pay, he said.

"What do I want to give up, my life or my leg?"

When he arrived at Swedish Hospital in Seattle, Hicks was struggling to breathe. His leg was swollen and red. He had a fever of 104 degrees.

Even though he didn't have obvious injuries or wounds, Dr. Martin Mankey, an orthopedic surgeon, quickly suspected the infected area. He consulted with a fellow specialist at Harborview, who told him seven people had died because the disease had not been diagnosed soon enough.

"Get that leg off!" the specialist told Mankey.

As Hicks' infection worsened, his leg began to turn black and purple. His oxygen levels and other vital signs dropped dangerously low.

"They said he dodged a bullet by about an hour," said his wife, Kathi Hicks.

No one knows exactly what triggered the disease. It could have started from a case of athlete's foot he had been battling for several weeks. The infection occurred in a leg that been badly crushed by an on-the-job accident a decade before.

Rich Hicks often talks to school groups about how he adjusted to his new life. He welcomes questions about his artificial leg and jokes with strangers, including airport security employees, about it.

Q: What is it?
A: Necrotizing fasciitis is a severe, uncommon infection that damages muscle, fat and skin. It can be caused by a variety of bacteria, but group A strep are the most common, and are sometimes referred to as flesh-eating bacteria.

Q: How does the infection occur?
A: Bacteria enter the body through a break in the skin or other injury. The infection spreads along the lining under the skin, called fascia, which includes the fat that surrounds muscles and internal organs.


Q: Are some people more at risk for the disease?
A: Yes. People with medical conditions that weaken their defenses against infections, including people with cancer or diabetes; those abusing alcohol or drugs; or those with chronic heart and lung disease. Less often, healthy people can get it. In some cases, no cause can be found.

Q: What are the symptoms?
A: Fever, moderate to severe pain or tenderness, especially with no apparent injury or wound, swelling, red or dusky blue rash, flulike symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, fever, confusion, dizziness and weakness.

Q: How is it spread?
A: Group A strep bacteria are often found in the throat and on the skin of healthy people. Most group A strep infections cause no symptoms, or they cause mild illnesses such as strep throat. On rare occasions, group A strep and other common bacteria can cause life-threatening diseases such as necrotizing fasciitis.

Q: Are there steps to take to prevent it?
A: Go to a clinic to be checked for strep if you have a sore throat and a fever. Wash your hands well when around someone who has a strep infection. Thoroughly clean skin injuries, even minor cuts and scrapes, with soap and water, and keep the wound clean. If you have increasing redness, swelling, wound drainage or pain, get medical attention right away to check for infection.