What if it isn’t eczema?

For several years, I have been getting recurrent crops of
dry yellow blisters that come up on my hands on the palm
side. They seem to start deep in the skin and end up on
the surface as a brown scale. Is this a form of eczema?
This sounds as though it is a condition called palmar pustulosis,
which can also affect the soles of the feet, when it is called palmo-
plantar pustulosis. The yellow blisters you describe contain pus
that is sterile, so not caused by an infection. Pus is just a collection
of white cells, which are involved in inflammation as well as fighting
infection. As they come up to the surface, the pustules dry up so
that only a dry discoloured patch of skin is left. This condition is
thought to have features of both eczema and another skin problem
called psoriasis and can be quite difficult to treat.What is the difference between eczema and psoriasis?
They are both capable of producing widespread chronic rashes,
ut psoriasis is a disease in which the turnover of the skin is greatly
peeded up – from the normal of 28 days down to 3 or 4. It therefore
roduces much more scale than eczema and the rash is much more
demarcated’, so you can see when it stops and normal skin takes
ver. It can be confused with eczema on certain parts of the body
uch as the face, hands and feet, and with certain types of eczema
uch as discoid eczema, in which there also tends to be scaling and
iscrete patches. Psoriasis involves parts of the immune system in
he skin that are different from the ones involved in eczema, so it
s rare to have both diseases together.