Pompholyx eczema

[FrankiesKnuckle]

Suffered contact dermatitis on hands for years, recently started to get accompanying blisters which are getting bigger every time. They are making my hands swell to the point I cannot wear my wedding or engagement rings when I'm having a flare up. Steroid ointment (betnovate) no longer effective at all.
It's actually getting me down now, my hands look like an 89yr old washer woman's hands. They're sore, cracked and swollen for what seems like the majority of the time now.
The itching wakes me up at night.
I take cetirizine in the morning and piriton at night which doesn't help either.
I'm off to the gp on Tuesday to beg for something to help, but what?!
Anyone else have any ideas or treatment?
Thanks.

I had an outbreak of this at New Year, many sympathies, had it on my feet as well, which was a whole new depth of grim. might be worth swapping antihistamine to loratadine? as I think if you don't normally take it, it might be more effective than ones you take regularly? I was advised to swap to loratadine.

Have you tried tacrolimus or pimecrolimus ointments? TBH I don't know anything about your sort of eczema, but pimecrolimus was fantastic for my contact dermatitis.

Do you know what triggers your dermatitis?

When mine was bad I had Fucidin cream which is a steroid cream with an antimicrobial in which stops infections if your hands are dry and cracking. Also, do you know what is causing it to flare up? Mine is triggered by excessive sweating, so it is always worse in summer. If it is that, you could ask your GP about something like oxybutynin tablets or similar (I take them for a different problem but my hands have been much less bad this year). They do have some side effects though - dry mouth mostly.

Sorry, the good steroid cream was Fucibet - stronger stuff!

Thanks for replys , it's helpful!
I'm not sure what causes the flare ups really, I suspect it's a combination of things with stress being a big factor too.
I try to avoid contact with household cleaning materials, new topical creams etc.
I'm pretty sure it's not dietary.
Hopefully I can get something that'll alleviate this bloody itch/scratch cycle.

What I thought was a severe stress reaction turned out to be a skin allergy. GP wanted to prescribe all those ultra-rich creams, like Diprobase, but they just made things worse for me and I kicked up a fuss until he referred me to a dermatologist. She sent me for patch-testing. I was sceptical, but she was right!

I'm currently having a flare up of this, I only get it on my left hand and foot, nothing seems to help tho, currently on my second steroid cream & I usually find that epiderm slathered on inbetween outbreaks helps but I can't tie down anything that is causing the outbreaks