As a musician/entertainer the worst thing that can happen to you is damage to your hands. Sure, I still have a voice, but I depened heavily upon my hands to keep that keyboard humming and the dancefloors packed. It's part of the job.

About a year ago I developed what a couple doctors said was likely eczema under the fingernails of three fingers. It was fairly small areas that occasionally became sore and reddened, and at times small patches of skin would peel off. Seven doctors later, thousands of dollars in medications and doctors visits, and the disease continued to progress to where the sore area on the tip of my long finger advanced to the size of a pencil eraser--still not too big, but sore as hell, especially while playing.

Finally, after nearly two years, one of the dermatoligists said "I'm sending you to a specialist who treats this successfully using a treatment called PUVA. It's an ultra-violet light treatment that does a pretty good job of curing this"

The specialist said "I'm confident we can get this under control, but it will take about 20 treatments before you will be cured. And, it will likely take about 12 treatments before you see any improvement."

The first five treatments did absolutely nothing. Essentially, I took three pills that made me 10 times more sensitive to UV light than normal and my hands were exposed to UV light inside a wide box containing about a dozen UV tubes. Each treatment lasted about 2 minutes, and at the end of the third treatment they said they would be gradually increasing the intensity.

During treatment #6 my hands felt hot when exposed to the light source--very hot. At the end of just 2 minutes they were severely burned--appearing almost as if I were severely sunburned. This was 8 days ago, the pain is excruciating, the skin is beet red, and I believe there may be some tendon damage on the palms of my hands.

The doctors office called to find out why I had not returned for treatments. I explained what happend and they said "Oh, sometimes this can happen, and the problem you are being treated for can sometimes become worse before getting better." THANKS A LOT!

Now, I can no longer wear bandages on the affected fingers because when they're removed the skin often comes off with the adhesive. Consequently, I have to perform with a white, cotten glove on my right hand and take lots of pain pills a couple hours prior to a performance. It ain't easy typing this either. My wife says when I wear my fancy black outfit with that white glove I look like Michael Jackson performing--just a lot older and can't moonwalk.

The main reason I posted this was not for sympthy--I don't need it! I just wanted to warn anyone who may have a similar problem to beware of PUVA treatments and know what some of the ramifications are. Tomorrow I have to pick up a prescription for a nasty anti-inflamitory drug to quell the damage and pain to the tendons. I'll still be lurking here, but typing is difficult at best so you probably will not see many posts by me for a while.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy