Contact

Is E@L the only person to come down with this particular malady? I thought it would be a pandemic across the smart-phone, pad/tab set and now with OS X Lion, spreading even worse.

My finger tips are killing me!

About two months ago I developed some sort of desquamating rash that took lots of layers of skin off the tips of the fingers of both hands. I am not talking TEN syndrome here, and not Stevens-Johnson Syndrome thankfully, but just this peeling and flaking. It lasted two weeks, maybe a little more.

I went to my dermatologist (yes, I have a dermatologist) and she pleaded with me to stop harassing her receptionist to give me an instant appointment and to stop panicking about the above mentioned syndromes and to keep the skin well moisturized as it is just contact dermatitis, some slight irritation maybe from soap or from washing powder. (I had done some hand-washing of clothes with this German soap liquid soap in Croatia, also in Australia the weeks before my visit to the Doc, perhaps it was that toxic gunk?) Maybe some steroid ointment would help, she suggested. Yes of course I have some at home. What sort of question is that?

So no more doing dishes for E@L. ("You're soaking in it, Madge!" - old TV ad. No? Yes?)

The flaking certainly cleared quickly enough with some simple, cheap (like I don't have 35 bottles of hotel-filched moisturizing cream in my cupboard) treatment as the Doc suggested and there are some pleasing side-effects when you have your hands covered in moisturizing cream for most of the day and night... which we won't go into here as the kids are watching...

However one patch of skin took a bit longer to heal than the rest and that was the medial aspect of the terminal phalanx of the second digit, on the palmar aspect of my left hand. Yep, the tip of my pointy finger, just a little off to the side (towards the flip finger). There was, like, this little divot, or rather a patch of flatness where all else was convex. This is the exact point where I make contact with all my touch sensitive devices (the electronic ones).

BTW - E@L is a molly-dooker, a south-paw - Da Vinci, Obama, E@L...

And while it was still red, inflamed, painful, I was not quite feverish, and there was no swelling - it was a flatspot! - but there was also, obviously, else why write this post, loss of function! (Dolor, rubor, calor, tumor, functio laesa Look 'em up.)

I had this sense of ... exposure, of vulnerability, of minuscule peri-phalangeal nakedness. It seemed like my inner finger was open to the ever-present dangers of our toxic environment...

But that wound too, in time, healed.

Now it just hurts. The sensitivity remains. The little tender little spot on my finger, this clitoral attacker turned victim, is still hurting. Ow. Like a toefucker!

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Using the Samsung smartphone is a pain, but not for the reasons you iPhone lemmings would taunt me with, because of the fingers! Lately I find myself touch-typing my texts (like a primitive iPhone user*, what a step backwards for man) instead of using Swype (look it up) and even using my flip (bird, big, third) finger to do all the important action things on the screen, like stretching back and directing the rubber bands for those perturbed avia, for example And making that switch has resulted in my big finger becoming sensitized as well. I now have two tender fingertips, and am having trouble getting all three stars on Level 4.

The MacBook Air is just the same. In fact it is worse on the Air's touchpad. Should I sue? All those multi-touch gestures on these devices, that sliding from side to side and stretching the fingers apart and circling around (does sound like clitoral stimulation, doesn't it?) are taking their toll.

Using the Xoom tab also finds the tenderness, of course but I am not using that much anymore, except to play Words With Friends as it doesn't have 3G... Sigh.

I'm not sure which of these devices is the greater culprit. It's just 'ow' all the time.

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Big fool E@L upgraded his Macs to OS X Lion last weekend.

As there is not much to this upgrade other than fucking up the scrolling direction (if you have scroll wheel in your mouse as I do) and being able to stretch windows from any side or corner (copyright infringement, surely), he bought a "magic" touch pad for the desktop iMac. Because of the tippy-tippy pointy-pointy issues on the left hand, E@L set it up in the right side of the keyboard and... you guessed...

Now the finger tips on the right hand are sore. Result, i am using the mouse and trying to get used to the "intuitive" scroll direction. Result: THREE (3, count ;em) sensitized fingertips.

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I was thinking at first, like when I started thinking about this on the weekend, that it might be the new laptop we have a work - a Lenovo Thinkpad with the little red button in the middle... Can we please stop talking about (clitoriseses? clitoratae?) clitorides. (IKYN)

That IBM/Lenovo think, what do they call it, TrackPoint, has small stipples - no not nipples - on the tip and they may have been... no, the skin peeling had started before this creature (not a bad computer actually) was delivered last month.

Ah, OK, enough whingeing. I'll just scroll down, oops up, no, down, to Publish this post now. Ow.

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OK, it's midnight, time for the moisturizer therapy and - hey, stop running to the bathroom E@L! Your lotions and creams will still be there...

E@L


*primitive iPhone user - you might find that phrase rather ambiguous. I don't.