UV Light Allergy

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Sour Gubblebum

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I'm ... I don't know anymore.
At the beginning of the year, my mom went into the hospital and I kind of threw myself into nail art as a type of therapy.
I've developed a UV light allergy due to Over Exposure. I THINK. It's not the product; my nails are very healthy.
I went back to school to learn acrylics so that I can move through this allergy, but we still have to work with UV lights and stuff.
Not a big deal. I've seen a dermatologist. I'm on a steroid cream for my fingers, which I use 3 times a day, twice while at school. I wear both heavy duty nitrile gloves and UV protectant thin driving gloves over those.
I've been TRYING to heal for months. I get to the point where my fingertips don't hurt just existing, and then I'm one step back.
Yesterday, I was working at my nail desk, learning UV sculpting. Got all my finger protective gear on. I've got the lamp pointed AWAY from me. Hand is only in contact with the lamp to put my practice hand in and pull it out of the opening.
Today, my fingertips are hurting. Not like they were when this whole thing started, but I'm worse for wear than I was a couple of days ago. I'm not sure what's going on.
Why am I not healing? There was a whole 3 or 4 months where I didn't do ANYTHING with my art at all. Not even regular nail polish.
I don't know what to do. Will I ever heal completely? I thought I had. I mean, I don't have fingerprints on half my fingers. They hurt if I bump them into things, or gosh forbid I flip a metal pusher around in my hand too quick and snag the corner. Nothing cuts the skin, but I swear its super painful for a few minutes.
I NEED to stay in school for my sanity. I love what I'm doing. I LOVE working with nails. I love my artform. I need to figure out a way to conquer this UV light allergy.
I have another appointment with my dermatologist this week. I've brought up all this to her before, and we're really working on it. I'm doing everything I can outside of just cutting it out of my life completely. I can do that after I graduate, so to speak. It'll not be my hands going near the UV light, just the clients, or guests, but it cuts out doing press on sets for clients out of state if that's something that comes up, however, I still have to get through to Feb, next year, which is when I graduate. I've gotta get through state boards and all that type of stuff.
I need some advice. My instructor, she's awesome, but she's treating it like an allergy, and I'm doing what I can, but she's not really dealt with anything like this. It's funny, because she's the opposite of me. Has an acrylic allergy from over exposure, so she can't do acrylic nails.
Please? Lol I'm coming to my wits end. I've been doing my own nails for 10+ years and I've never had anything like this happen to me.
Thank you.
 
I'm not convinced it's a UV light allergy, the sun emits UV light, you wouldn't be able to leave the house as your face would react, it's closer to the source than your finger tips.

Have you had some medical allergy testing? This is your first step, until you know definitely what you are reacting to you cannot resolve the issue.
 
As above, I think it's an allergy, most likely to something in the nail products you are using.
Were you just diy'ing before you went to train to do nails? If so, it may have been low quality non-pro products (maybe bought from Amazon, Ebay etc). Could be from overexposure to the products if you were getting stuff on the skin, or applying too much.
And then once you have an allergy to one ingredient, it could set off allergies to others. Even others that aren't just found in nail products.
As above, it's definitely worth getting a patch allergy test to see exactly what ingredient(s) you are allergic to. Because trial and error or just trying to push through it could be doing more bad than good.
 
I'm ... I don't know anymore.
At the beginning of the year, my mom went into the hospital and I kind of threw myself into nail art as a type of therapy.
I've developed a UV light allergy due to Over Exposure. I THINK. It's not the product; my nails are very healthy.
I went back to school to learn acrylics so that I can move through this allergy, but we still have to work with UV lights and stuff.
Not a big deal. I've seen a dermatologist. I'm on a steroid cream for my fingers, which I use 3 times a day, twice while at school. I wear both heavy duty nitrile gloves and UV protectant thin driving gloves over those.
I've been TRYING to heal for months. I get to the point where my fingertips don't hurt just existing, and then I'm one step back.
Yesterday, I was working at my nail desk, learning UV sculpting. Got all my finger protective gear on. I've got the lamp pointed AWAY from me. Hand is only in contact with the lamp to put my practice hand in and pull it out of the opening.
Today, my fingertips are hurting. Not like they were when this whole thing started, but I'm worse for wear than I was a couple of days ago. I'm not sure what's going on.
Why am I not healing? There was a whole 3 or 4 months where I didn't do ANYTHING with my art at all. Not even regular nail polish.
I don't know what to do. Will I ever heal completely? I thought I had. I mean, I don't have fingerprints on half my fingers. They hurt if I bump them into things, or gosh forbid I flip a metal pusher around in my hand too quick and snag the corner. Nothing cuts the skin, but I swear its super painful for a few minutes.
I NEED to stay in school for my sanity. I love what I'm doing. I LOVE working with nails. I love my artform. I need to figure out a way to conquer this UV light allergy.
I have another appointment with my dermatologist this week. I've brought up all this to her before, and we're really working on it. I'm doing everything I can outside of just cutting it out of my life completely. I can do that after I graduate, so to speak. It'll not be my hands going near the UV light, just the clients, or guests, but it cuts out doing press on sets for clients out of state if that's something that comes up, however, I still have to get through to Feb, next year, which is when I graduate. I've gotta get through state boards and all that type of stuff.
I need some advice. My instructor, she's awesome, but she's treating it like an allergy, and I'm doing what I can, but she's not really dealt with anything like this. It's funny, because she's the opposite of me. Has an acrylic allergy from over exposure, so she can't do acrylic nails.
Please? Lol I'm coming to my wits end. I've been doing my own nails for 10+ years and I've never had anything like this happen to me.
Thank you.
Ive got to say I think its more than likely its an acrylates allergy.

They can be extremely severe and get worse over time.

What product are you using? Not that I think it will make much difference now

But ive had friends contact me and sent me photos after theyve gone to professional salons that still use bluesky gel polish even though its known how dodgy they are.
 

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