DS excessive hand wrinkling. Cystic fibrosis? So worried!

[Beebatron]

First of all pleas be gentle with me, we have suffered a lot of illness in our household recently and I am having such a horrendous time with health anxiety. I'm in treatment but tonight I just am at my wits end.
Ds came down after a (admittedly long) shower and his hands were so wrinkly, to the point they were hurting him and I'd genuinely never seen them like that before. He says its been happening for a while and sometimes they hurt after. Stupidly I googled and the first thing that came up was as a possible sign of cystic fibrosis called aquagenic wrinkling. DS is now 11 and had the heel prick test at birth plus has had no chest issues in his life, he does however have recurrent issues with his sinuses and has just recovered from a terrible sinus infection.
I know my GP will give me the look if I take him in about this but I have gotten myself into such a state. Attached is a picture of his hands for reference although it looked much worse in reality, though completely back to normal after ten-fifteen minutes.
Opinions/advice/reassurance would be greatly appreciated. I have to go to hospital tomorrow for an unrelated issue and I don't think my anxiety can get much higher!

I also forgot to mention he does get extremely sweaty hands to the point that his pen slips out of them at school. We thought it was puberty related and were looking into treatments for it but not started to use anything yet.

Knowing people with cystic fibrosis I'm 99.9999% certain that it would have been picked up years ago. The symptoms include a marked failure to thrive, horrific chest infections, feeding difficulties - I cannot see any circumstance where your child could have reached the age of 11 and been undiagnosed. I would imagine he just stayed in the shower too long.

This is what I imagined too but apparently you can be diagnosed later in life, I had no idea.

This isn't cystic fibrosis. Why involve your son in this? What did you tell him as to why you were posting a normal picture of his hands on Mumsnet?

It's incredibly, incredibly unlikely to be CF. I'm glad you're getting help for your anxiety because jumping to conclusions about your healthy child having CF is really not normal. Rather than taking your son to the GP about his hands it's probably a good idea to go yourself and ask about more mental health support.

As I said, I wanted others opinions as I am anxious, worried and suffering from other health issues at the moment that have made me possibly hyper vigilant about illness etc, it is also late and I have no one else to speak to about this right now.

Usually I would be more level headed about this but as I say he has been really unwell recently with this hideous sinus infection that won't seem to go away and has been really run down.

How long was he in the water?

How long was the shower and how hot was it? It's extremely unlikely that his skin is anything other than normal wrinkling following contact with water. Honestly, it won't be cystic fibrosis.

It was a long ish shower but he usually is in there a while and I have never seen them get like this before, there were also weird white bumps on the palms. He complained that they were hurting him too.

He might need antibiotics for the sinus infection. Even if it started off as a viral infection, it could have developed a secondary bacterial infection. What sinusitis treatment is he doing? Nasal washouts, medication, sprays etc.?

Yes the whole works, for his ears as well. Initially I thought maybe a weird medication side effect but he says its been going on for a while even before he had the infection.

Waterlogged skin can be a bit sore. Could he be having some allergy to the soap or shampoo? A lot of manufacturers are using cheaper ingredients now and it's causing some people to be irritated or allergic to their usual products.

Has he seen a GP?

This is possible but we tend to use the same things over and over and he hasn't used anything radically new. Obviously I know this is far more likely than CF but that is what it is, excessively water logged. He was also in the shower, not bath, so his hands were never completely submerged.

Not for this issue, he was seen last week for this infection he currently has and he said his chest sounded fine and he's never suffered with his chest, just sinus issues.

My hands get like that sometimes if I use certain cleaning products without gloves, even if my hands aren't in the water for that long. Has he been using a new type of soap or shower gel?

If it were CF, it would have been picked up years ago. Also op, in the kindest way possible, you should look into getting help for your anxiety.

Ah sorry, I just reread the op and see you're getting treatment

How much does he drink in a day? I get wrinkled skin quite quickly in hot water if I'm dehydrated.

It won't be CF. lick him - people with cf tend to have salty sweat!

Everyone has salty sweat - your body loses salts via sweating.

I will give him a lick tomorrow and confirm to him I have finally fully lost my mind 😂.
Normally I would never jump to a conclusion like this even with my health anxiety, but when I (stupidly) googled, it came up immediately as 'aquagenic wrinkling' which can be used to diagnose CF and then when I saw another symptom is repeated sinus infections I got really worried as he has been really unwell recently.

Wrinkling in water is completely normal.
I'm pretty sure you'd know if he had CF.
Stop googling.

He'd have chest and gastrointestinal problems if it was CF. People with CF are poorly with chest infections and have digestive problems as well.

Hang on, it certainly is possible for CF not to be picked up until teens/adulthood.

Health anxiety or not, you know your child better than anyone else OP, so if a G.P visit will help to put your mind at rest, call them.