Categories: Health Tips

Hand Care During Covid-19 Phase

We’re living in an entirely different world right now – a world of COVID-19. During these times, where frequent hand-washing & use of alcohol-based sanitizers have been advocated, many people are suffering from intense itching, dryness, burning, cuts & abrasions over hands.

We know that washing hands or using a sanitizer often is a must now but we tend to forget that one thing to do afterwards – Applying a moisturizer! Do you know that too much soap can lead to cracks in the palms of your hands leading to more subtle entry to germs and viruses?

We certainly cannot avoid washing hands (of course to prevent ourselves from the deadly virus), but we can definitely avoid its aftereffects. If we follow few the steps mentioned below, we can avoid dry hands, itching, chapped skin and more :

Use Hand Creams:
Apply hand creams/ moisturizers after every hand-wash. Creams help moisturize the skin while keeping it soft and improves its tendency to beat the harshness of soap. Try using ointments or moisturizers instead of lotions and apply it after every hand wash. Like every hand wash leads to dryness, every-time a cream will counter-affect it and help in moisturizing the skin.

Use Sanitizers with 60-70% Alcohol :

Sanitizer with alcohol content of 60-70% is sufficient to beat the COVID-19 virus. Repeated use of hand sanitizers with higher alcohol content leads to side effects like increased dryness and cracked palm skin. This happens because the alcohol in the sanitizer sways the natural oils in your skin that help retain the moisture.

Limit hand-wash time to 20 seconds. Don’t over do it:
Don’t keep rubbing your hands with soap just ‘coz you think it’s helping. 20 secs is ideal to get rid of all germs and if you wash your hands in the right way. Wash between fingers, back of hands, palm, and nails but limit the time. More time hands in soap and water, more skin irritation!

Don’t let house work affect your hands:
Obviously you cannot skip the household chores, however you can be preventive of how it may affect your hands. Wear gloves for chores that need your hands under water. Go for mild detergents or cleansers that are soft on hands. As household chores have increased during the pandemic, don’t forget to moisturize each time you finish your work.

Let it heal while you are asleep:
Our skin is in repairing mode when we’re asleep during the night. Apply urea, lactic acid, petrolatum based strong moisturizer or an ointment before sleeping. This is the best time for your skin to heal. Overnight application of creams help deep moisturization which preps the skin further!

Well, we encourage you to practice “Namaste” instead of a handshake, so you don’t really have to worry about your rough hands anyway. Lol! And if you still wish to do so, take precautions, moisturize and just hang in there! By the time it’s all over, it will be a new normal for our hands too! 🙂

Dr. Kapila Verma