I realize that as a food svc industry worker,it is imperative I wash my hands frequently.At my current job,we are required to wash our hands every 15 min or so, as well as use Purel antibiotic hand sanitizer after washing. Those handwashings can really add up and I’ve deduced (through process of elimination,natch) that I am allergic to the handsoap and possibly the sanitizer we use at work.
My hands are puffed up,itchy,red,cracking and peeling in places.I am constantly (though I know I shouldn’t) scatching and when I am at home, using a ton of moistuerizer to try and return the natural moisture balance to my poor abused hands.
I am going to address this issue with my boss (if he’s there today…I didn’t get the chance yesterday)when I go into work this morning in about an hour and a half.
Best case scenario?He changes the soap/sanitizer we use to something I am NOT allergic to.
Worse case scenario? I get fired over soap.
I should’ve known this was going to happen.It happened in a previous food svc stint when I was 16 but it had been so long since I’d been allergic to a freaking SOAP that it took me awhile to figure out exactly what I was allergic to.
IDBB
Does anything in your entire life make you happy?
Can you just wear rubber gloves or something, and change them frequently? Like the ones they wear at Subway when they make my sandwich?
jin–if I could,believe me I would.I am a cashier, and I have no direct contact with food (other than the prepacked ketchup,mustard,etc). Yet we are still required to wash our hands frequently.
And I don’t think that my place of work even has one single box of gloves laying about.I’ve been in the kitchen and even THEY don’t wear gloves and they are in constant contact with raw meat,etc.
Granted…I don’t know how often they wash THEIR hands but I would assume it is on par with how mere cashiers are required to wash our hands.
Jar–It’s not that I’m complaining about the job,per se.Just the stupid handsoap and sanitizer. If you were in my place,you’d be bitchin’ too. My hands are poofed up,dry,extremely red,cracking and extremely itchy.It don’t feel like they are coated in silk,I tell you whut.
IDBB
What about wet ones? Ask the manager if you can substitute some of the washings by wiping your hands with a wet one.
Or, right after you wash and dry, apply some lotion.
Get yourself a box of rubber gloves. I’m pretty sure you can get some at walmart or kmart or the like. Also pick up a bottle of Gold Bond Extra Medicated lotion. It’s a big green bottle. Before bed, slather that lotion on nice and thick. Put on a pair of gloves. Do that every night. It’s thick and icky and stinky, but it works.
You might want to revisit your job definition with the boss and why it is he feels it necessary for you to wash/disinfect so frequently.
Also, a dermatologist would be able to advise on a hypoallergenic soap to bring in as an alternative to the soap the rest of your co-workers use.
Corn Huskers is a godsend. My dermatologist gave me some about ten years ago when I started having a problem very similar to yours–my hands were puffy and irritated and the all the skin peeled off on a two-or-three day cycle. This stuff is amazing. Cleared me up in a matter of days. You can get it at most drugstores or Target and places like that.
That’s just treating the symptoms, though, not the disease. Have you tried using a different soap than the rest of the crew? Softsoap and Dove make liquid handsoaps with a lotion in them, and I know I’ve seen a moisturizing hand sanitizer on the shelves. Maybe it would help if you alternated types of soap during the day.
Lastly, have you tried a parrafin dip for your hands? After you finish work on a Friday (or whatever the day before your “weekend” might be), go to your local salon or acryllic nail shop. A parrafin dip costs $5-$10 for both hands (at least where I come from) and it’s incredibly moisturizing. You dip your hands in warm, treated parrafin several times and then let it sit. My girl ties plastic baggies over clients’ hands to seal the heat and moisture in, but not everyone does that–I think it really helps. After about five minutes, you peel the wax of and your hands feel great. My brother, who has the kind of itchy dry skin that just hurts like and SOB, swears by it.
I would just bring my own soap that I wasn’t having an allergic reaction too. You could keep it with you in a mini bottle. They probably won’t change their soap. I had this happen with some stuff that I was cleaning with called Shelia Shine. I hated that stuff and whoo-weee did it make you break out. We even did the glove stint when we used it, but the smell was so terrible. They did change, but that was because they were having more than just me complain about it. Namely the guest.
Bingo- I worked in a hospital pharmacy with direct contact with drugs, IVs, compounds, etc and there was no rule about how often you wash your hands- (obviously we washed them, but no one stood there saying "15 minutes is up- wash 'em up!) If you’re not handling food, I don’t see why you even have to.
If they are requiring it, they should be providing good, hypoallergenic soap and lotion to go with it like they do at hospitals. They can’t expect you to wash 4 times an hour (which I’ve never, ever heard of- even in food service) with just any soap- it’s not made for that.
I’d be really curious as to why they require this- it sounds WAY over the top.
You are not obliged to subject yourself to something that gives you an allergic reaction in order to retain a job. Even states that allow “at will” employment do have certain rules on the subject.
And it’s been my experience that any restaurant kitchen is obliged by state Health Code standards to provide thin discardable latex gloves, and require kitchen workers to wear them – you might raise this issue with him in a “I don’t want us to get in trouble with the State Health Dept.; what’s the rule on this here?” sort of tactful way.
There are hypoallergenic disinfectant soaps available – check out available sources and make your boss aware of them.
The regular requirement is probably because you are in a job description that requires handling of food, even though you do not yourself do so – you might check with him on whether it can be relaxed when all you’re doing is cashiering. (But do do it if you have to handle food, even wrapped and prepared food, at all – you’re saving him from the possibility a fine in the thousands (as would your question that I suggested above). Buy and wear the gloves and/or buy the hypoallergenic soap if he won’t provide them – if he doesn’t offer to reimburse, they’re tax-deductible as “a necessary expense of performing your job.”
I do believe that some states- Pennsylvania, at least- do not require the use of rubber gloves for handling food. The logic there is that rubber gloves, although hygenic when fresh out of the box, get dirty as quickly as hands do anyway.
Clean, washed hands are sanitary enough for food service, assuming that there are no open wounds or sores presents. Few people wear gloves in their own kitchen. Often people will find it easier to remember to wash their hands than to change their gloves. When I worked in a deli, some of my more annoying collegues would wear the same pair of gloves for an hour or more, not thinking that as soon as they touched the cabinet handle, the gloves weren’t sterile anymore!
Oh, yeah, and IDBB- get some gloves.
IDBB, I suffered exactly your symptoms when I bussed tables … I never thought at the time it was a soap/cleaning chemical allergy, but it may have been.
At any rate, Juniper200 gives solid advice. Corn Husker’s Lotion is very helpful. I only used it when I was not working, however – I found that Corn Husker’s Lotion was too runny and absorbs too slowly to be much good while working. I found a better product … one that was more portable than a bottle of CHL and one that wasn’t runny – Carmex. Carmex is meant to combat chapped lips, but I’d spread all over the back of my hand, taking care to lay it on thick on the knuckles and between the fingers.
While Carmex is waxy and doesn’t absorb all that quickly into the skin, I would leave it on my hands, and bus tables and handwash as usual. After a handwashing, the excess Carmex dissipates and your hands are left with a thin barrier of Carmex that protects your skin from water (and perhaps soap). Plus, skin that had adsorbed some Carmex seemed virtually impervious to the “dishpan hands” condition.
Carmex made a huge difference for me.
Any gloves used in a food service/food handling setting should be single-use, and powder-free. Also latex-free, as some customers can be so allergic to latex that they can have a reaction to being handed something by a latex-gloved hand.
I’m like you - I have pretty sensitive skin when it comes to stuff like that. I’ve had to switch laundry detergents god knows how many times because I end up scratching and itching at work. The best hand soap for me is plain old Ivory. It’s the only thing that doesn’t quite make my skin crawl. Try to stay away from anything with heavy colors or fragrances - that seems to be what makes me itch worse.
Ava
I have a product to recommend. It’s called Miracle Hand Repair and I got it at one of those As Seen On TV stores you see in a mall. It’s a thick cream that you have to rub in for a couple of minutes to help it absorb. It sinks in and leaves a protective film on the top of your skin. Apply it in the morning and at night and it should help you out a lot. It’s got aloe vera, maybe that’s the key.
ava–I usually don’t have any problems with soap,which is why it took me a month to figure out what exactly was causing my hands to react this way.
kaylasdad–I’m going to see if I can go to Target and buy some regular plastic gloves.I can’t use latex due to a latex allergy unfortunately.Found THAT lovely bit of info out in HS when we were dissecting frogs and my hands swelled up inside my standard issue lab latex gloves.:rolleyes:
Poly–Mr.Hamad,the GM and my direct boss,wasn’t there today but I’ll see if I can get him to switch to a different kind of soap or see if he can get me some gloves. I asked Issac,the asst mgr on duty today if I could see the box t hat the soap comes in to see if there is an ingredient list. Since this has happened before,I know what chemical is doing it and will be able to determine if it’s in the soap by reading the box.Hopefully,he’ll listen to me and realize that if he wants to me to stay on,he’ll change the soap.Of course…this could easily backfire.It’s easier to fire the one employee who’s allergic than to change the soap when NOBODY else is showing allergic reactions,I’d think. But that’s just me.IANA resteraunt mgr.
Ashkicker–I have,after the last week or so,considered doing that but I don’t know if I’d be allowed to.It might be worth my while to ask if it helps this go away.I’ll ask tomorrow when I go in if Mr.Hamad is there.
He wasn’t there today and Issac,when he saw the condition my poor hands were in, attempted in his own non-English speaking way to help by having me rinse my hands really well with cold water and then wiping them with a medicated antibacterial wipe from the first aid kit in the office.He then spread some toothnumber(can’t think of the name…you use it when you get a toothache)from the first aid kit on my hands and put me strictly on hand-out duty where I wouldn’t have to wash my hands at all.He also sent me home early.Yay.
I rinsed my hands REALLY well once I got home,slathered on some moistureizer and have drunk enough water to sink the Titannic. I know from past experience with this (has happened once before)that the only way to TRULY make it go away is to quit using the offending soap and drink LOTS AND LOTS of water to flush all the toxins out of my system so my skin will stop attacking itself and causing an allergic reaction.
So far…the swelling has gone down a little bit,my hands are a shade less red and the itching has almost completely stopped.If I stop using the offending soap, this will have cleared itself up by Easter…hopefully.
I just hope I don’t get fired over this.Like I said earlier,IANA rest. mgr but in my mind, it is easier to fire the one person who is allergic than it would be to change the soap since NOBODY else on the crew is allergic to this soap.
IDBB
Hmm? It’s far easier to allow you to bring your own soap than it is to fire you and train someone from scratch to replace you. No need to be defeatist. There are several easy compromises to your situation, and you should feel that you are worth the compromises. If your manager is that unbending, take a walk. Restaurant jobs are a dime a dozen – I speak from expericence.
Honestly, for cashiering, a warm water rinse and the antimicrobial gel should be more than enough. Heck, you could bring a bottle of hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol to work, pour a teaspoon into your palm, and scrub it all over your palms and fingertips in lieu of the offending soap. Then rinse with water – after that, the antimicrobial gel is pretty much overkill.
Another good product, which is pretty cheap, too, is called “Bag Balm.” The product’s use is for cows’ udders which sometimes crack and bleed. It’s absolutely incredible for healing cracked skin. (The product is very thick, like Vasaline. I’ve put it on my hands at night, and worn a pair of cotton gloves so it won’t get all over the sheets. It works wonders.)
I highly recommend it. You can probably find it at any agricultural supply store like Quality Farm & Fleet. Ten million happy cows can’t be wrong.
It would probably be EASIER to train someone to replace me since fast food workers are a dime a dozen and my training hasn’t gone too well anyway since I am the only native English speaker on the crew.Everybody else speaks Spanish and Mr.Hamad speaks only a little English,some spanish and some Arabic.
I’m all for diversity.It’s a good thing(as Martha Stewart would say)but there are a stack of apps sitting in the office and more than a few of them are from Hispanics.So in all honesty,I wouldn’t be surprised if I was fired over this and he hired a person who speaks Spanish instead.It would be far easier,IMO,to train THEM since they already speak the language that 99% of the crew speaks.
IDBB