My dear wife still gives me a hard time about this. But yes, I use gloves for loading the dishwasher and washing up. If you have sensitized skin why make it worse? If you have a sore area from your nickel allergy why aggravate it?
I use the food handling ones for loading the dishwasher and nitrile for washing up (since they are stronger). See gloves for more detail.
My daughter was just diagnosed by pediatrician as having a nickel allergy. She has had a rash for 3wks. I am doubting if this is really the cause but the Dr. immediately suspected it as her child has the same allergy. My daughters rash did start around bellbutton where jeans hit her. It has come and gone for 3 weeks BUT it has been in all different areas of her body. Arms, legs, neck, buttocks, back, etc… Most articles do not say that it spreads like this….. I don’t want to go through the trouble of Nickel precaution for nothing. Thoughts???????/
Good question. Did the doctor actually test for contact allergies?
The standard method is patch testing – basically some patches with common allergens would be taped to her body (e.g. back) for 1-2 days and the doctor would look for a rash under each allergen sample.
Without some kind of test it’s basically a guess – probably a good guess but still a guess. Contact allergies would normally show up where the allergen touches so I would expect the rash to stay wherever metal was touching her. If she gets a repeated rash under the belt buckle try coating that in nail polish. It’s temporary but will give her some relief.
It’s popular for girls to wear layered shirts. Have her wear a camisel type shirt under her shirt and tuck it into her jeans so there is a barrier between her skin and the button.
Nickel chloride is use to manufacture nitrile. I just learned this after developing hand eczema (dyshidrosis). I’ve been wearing nitrile gloves for 5-6 years and never had a problem until recently. I used to only wear them less than 15-20 minutes at a time until recently when I started wearing them for as long as 6-8 hours. That’s when my hands would begin getting sweaty after 30 mins. or so and I started having to take a break every hour to wash my hands, let them dry and breathe for while before putting on another pair. The first time I spent an afternoon doing this the very next day I woke up with the onset of dyshidrosis, a cluster of teeny tiny blisters on the palm of my hand.
I posted another comment about this on this blog with more details and info on glove allergies. After reading through pages and pages of posts on blogs and medical help forums from people suffering from this condition I learned that many of these people are wearing nitrile gloves and apparently doctors aren’t warning them about glove allergies. Every type of disposible glove may cause allergies. If you a hand allergy or condition you owe it to yourself to check into whether gloves may be a contributing factor. I asked my doctors and they didn’t think the gloves caused it but my gut told me it did and I was right.