I'm NEVER allergic! ...'til now
4I recently bought an inexpensive “smart watch” from from a certain daily deal website that rhymes with “eh.” It came with 2 watchbands, a attractive tan “vegan leather” one, and a black rubber one. The watch is pretty good especially considering the favorable price point.
I wore it for probably three days especially interested in the sleep monitoring function. The first night it didn’t record any sleep, the second night just 3 or 4 hours. The third night I kind of cinched it up snugly and it again, didn’t catch my sleep cycle.
I still like the the reading texts and messages on the watch tho…but I took the watch off for a breather.
It’s been about 3 days and my wrist is still showing a rash from the vegan leather band.
I’ve never had an allergic reaction before in my life! I wish to turn this particular medical question over to the citizenry of the meh forum however.
What do I do for this?
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I had this happen when I wore a watch for several days and nights. Maybe you just have sensitive skin. Let it heal up and alternate wrists day/night? Or get a better band.
@sammydog01 Yeah, the 72 hour marathon didn’t do me much good, I’m sure. I switched the band for the black rubber one provided and am wearing it on my left wrist now.
Thanks for the tips!
The other possibility is that something got under the band. Had that happen at an event 2 years ago. I had to go by cortisone cream and benadryl. best check is if it comes back next time you wear it.
@Cerridwyn Thank you! I’m going to go get some cortisone cream I suppose. I have some generic Benedryl already :choo:
@werehatrack Goodness! That long huh? I might get some latex tape or something after this is over and experiment. For now, I suppose the cream will do.
@cfg83 Wow, you must come from an acidic part of the country! I do like vinegar for cleaning my humidifier and more edible as present in Italian dressing for garden tomatoes…but not on my (now apparently) “delecate” skin.
Thanks for the feedback y’all!
/showme the acid planet that the goat cfg83 hails from
@therealjrn Here’s the image you requested for “the acid planet that the goat cfg83 hails from”
@mediocrebot @therealjrn Yeah, Venus is for wimps.
@cfg83 @therealjrn Yikes! The acid planets that I visited as a teen were much cheerier…
@cfg83 @macromeh
/showme an acid trip
@therealjrn Here’s the image you requested for “an acid trip”
@mediocrebot @therealjrn Hrmmmm …
/showme The acid planet that the goat cfg83 hails from has a cafeteria serving Caeser Salads DRENCHED in Caeser salad dressing.
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “The acid planet that the goat cfg83 hails from has a cafeteria serving Caeser Salads DRENCHED in …”
@mediocrebot @therealjrn Hmmmm …
/showme Cyberpunk goat sitting at table with salad and saying “Ive eaten things you people wouldn’t believe. Caeser Salads DRENCHED in dressing so thick you’d think it was a Shamrock Shake. Vinegar ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched Caeser-salad-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhouser Salad Bar Gate restaurant. All those moments will be lost in time, like vinegar in salad. Time to diet.”
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Cyberpunk goat sitting at table with salad and saying Ive eaten things you people wouldn’t believ…”
@cfg83 @therealjrn
Excellent Blade Runner reference!
(Probably my all-time favorite film. I can’t count how many times I’ve watched it.)
@macromeh @therealjrn As it should be. My crowning(?) achievement was to get my nephew addicted to it. First time he saw it was “ho hum”, but it captured him with later viewings. I found this dude recently, and he gave me more to chew on …
After similar adventures, I’ve learned that the only acceptable band materials for me are metal, leather, silicone rubber, and some fabric. What you’ve experienced looks like a classic instance of contact dermatitis, and it can take as much as a month to fully heal. Some people will have that level of reaction to latex rubber in as little as an hour. You can probably guess where some common examples are found, but one of the nastier obscure ones is in the latex-based adhesive that is sometimes used for ostomy bags. Latex is also used to construct the theatrical prosthetics used in stage and screen, and the constant contact with it can produce scarring.
@werehatrack ibid!
(Say with russian comedian accent)
In america, people eat vegan watchbands. In aMEHrica, vegan watchbands eat you!
If I had that rash, then I would use rubbing alcohol and/or vinegar to try to heal it, but I am not very smart, so don’t do what I suggest.
I get knock-off inifinite-adjustable “metal-braid” bands from e-bay, because they’re cheap and INFINITELY adjustable.
I infused the watch and with the essence of mountain juniper pollen from central Texas.
Apologies couldn’t help myself.
/giphy mountain juniper pollen
@f00l Oh bless you! That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger!
I’ve gotten woven bands for my Fitbit from this site - the woven ones let some air in so your skin can breathe.
https://strapsco.com/shop/
This type of thing:
https://strapsco.com/?s=Woven+bands&post_type=product
@Kyeh Thank you! I’ll check them out!
@Kyeh @therealjrn
FWIW I use woven elastic bands on my Apple Watch. And those silicone bands in other watches.
So far no prob.
@f00l @Kyeh I’m hopeful that the black “rubber” band might be silicone. But since the watch was so inexpensive I’m not going to hold my breath.
Since the durn thing doesn’t seem to track sleep that well, that’ll make it easier to take breaks at night from it.
I have to measure to see what size band I’m shopping for, that band site @Kyeh has some interesting options!
I agree with the idea of contact dermatitis though it could also be a pressure issue. Applying a Benadryl and/or cortisone based cream should help, and definitely keep everything off that wrist until it heals in. The fact you “cinched it up tighter” may have contributed to your issue. Especially if you wore it in the shower and to wash your hands, etc as you might have gotten water/soap trapped under it. Also take a close look at the band itself, as it seems like the edge of the band produced much more inflammation than the center. Is there a slight arch to the material that would cause it to have more pressure on the edges? Is there a seam or stitching that may have caused that?
Good luck with this.
BTW, maybe I’m just a wimp but I was never able to tolerate metal bands. That always seem to pull the hairs out of my wrist.
@chienfou Yeah, I didn’t think it was overly tight, but it was pretty snug, that’s why I mentioned it.
I’m not a yuge fan of metal bands either. I have some, such as my Dad’s watch, but that’s what he liked and I like it because of that.
Thanks for chiming in, I noticed that odd edge inflamation too and that’s where the stitching is as well.
For now I’m going to wait on the inflamation to subside and go from there.
@chienfou Oh yeah, cortizone is great for skin rashes. It doesn’t dry all oily either.
Idk if “evil Amazon” (wtf I shop there some so I’m being a hypocrite here)
has a band for your watch.
But that place does seem to carry watch bands for every watch when I’ve gone looking.
@f00l Ha ha! I’m sure they do! There’s a $5 watch band over on Woot this morning (and a Woot-off, if that’s your thing) but I don’t think it will fit my watch
Would I typically do is scratch it until it bleeds.
But I don’t know if that’s good advice.
@kittykat9180 Lol, it did itch a little, and I did scratch at it a little ha ha. Now it’s just red.
Still red! It’s taking quite a while to clear up.
@kittykat9180 At least you meant well.
@cfg83 of course 🫣
Well, @kittykat9180, to be completely fair, @cfg83 was the one who suggested I put acid on it! I think he meant well…
@cfg83 @therealjrn I mean, the rash would be gone after that.
@kittykat9180 @therealjrn Yeah, I’m one of those weirdos that misses mercurochrome. I’m glad it’s gone, but I still miss it.
@cfg83 @kittykat9180 @therealjrn I hated the way it felt but I liked the color. I only remember having it applied when I was really little, though.
@kittykat9180 @Kyeh @therealjrn Yes! When I was 5(?) years old, I horrified my parents when they came home and found I had used it to paint my skin with patterns. They took me to the hospital where it was determined I hadn’t drank any.
/showme stupid boy with shirt that says “cfg83” is using little bottle of red-orange liquid to paint patterns onto his arms, face, and legs. Parents are looking on with dread.
Those were the daze!!!
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “stupid boy with shirt that says cfg83 is using little bottle of red-orange liquid to paint patter…”
@mediocrebot Ding ding ding!
@kittykat9180 @therealjrn
@cfg83 I bet you were a handful!
@kittykat9180 @Kyeh @therealjrn I got away with murder.
/showme Brat boy named “cfg83” trying to catch crawdads with his bare hands in open drainage ditch.
@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Brat boy named cfg83 trying to catch crawdads with his bare hands in open drainage ditch.”
@cfg83 @mediocrebot
See? Same kid!! Lol
@cfg83 @therealjrn
I was gonna comment that it used the same kid.
@kittykat9180 @therealjrn Yeah, I’m wondering if that kid is the AI’s denace-the-menace archetype.
@kittykat9180
No, YOU are @cfg83!
When I was 3 years old, I had a spring-suspended wooden rocking horse I had inherited from an older child. Loved it but the black paint on it was chipped and worn.
I loved blue at that moment.
So dad got a small can of oil based blue (whatever type of oil based paint that was commonly used for home wood painting projects back during the warhead-race era)
He thought it would be a fun project for the two of us. So he lightly sanded the rocking horse and got me a little paintbrush and off to work we went. On a tarp on the patio.
Then the phone rang in the house. Mom was out so he took my brush and made me promise to wait and went in to take the call, which turned out to be a call about his business. So took maybe 10 min?
He kept yelling at me that he would just be another minute.
Then the call ended and he came out back.
Warm day so I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt that day.
When he came back out my arms and legs were completely blue.
He had put my little brush out if my reach boy I had been able to reach his big brush.
He got upset about me painting myself. and yelled at me to stop and took the brush away. So I got upset, and being 3, started sobbing.
He tried to wipe the paint off my legs while I was sobbing and so, being 3 and helpful, I started screaming and wailing at what I was later told were rock concert levels.
Fortunately we had great neighbors. The next door mom came out to see what the fuss was and she was the sort of person who could calm people down and solve things.
It was just before Halloween and she’d bought some huge packs of lollipops and tootsie rolls and she retrieved those from wherever they were hidden. Dad went and got turpentine from the garage and a bunch of rags.
She fed me lollipops and I could have a tootsie roll between each if I didn’t cry. She got her kids to tell me jokes and they also got candy if they could make me laugh.
And somehow thru all this they got most of the paint off me before mom got home with my brother.
Since most of the disaster was fixed by the time mom got home she only had to yell at dad a little over his stupidity.
(Mom knew dad intended to paint the rocking horse w me but thought he would do it while she was also home.)
So, to celebrate after the rocking horse was painted and everything else was cleaned up, mom cooked a huge spaghetti dinner for our family and for our neighbors family, and for dessert she served ice cream completely covered with blue sprinkles.
/giphy “ice cream blue sprinkles”
@f00l
What a phenomenal story! I suppose no photos got taken? Thank goodness for your neighbors. Have you seen this?
And since it was just before Halloween, I hope your costume somehow took advantage of your blueness?
@f00l
/showme a three year old goat named f00l as she dressed up as a smurf
@therealjrn Here’s the image you requested for “a three year old goat named f00l as she dressed up as a smurf”
@f00l @therealjrn Hah, that’s really cute.
@Kyeh
Aw…you’re just adorable @f00l
@Kyeh @therealjrn
Once in a while I’m kinda cute.
@f00l reminds me of the time the bedroom was getting painted. Sister who was about 4 got a can open in the night. She painted her sleeping teenage sister head to toe without her waking up until morning. Worst part is no pictures and I was not home to see
@f00l @speediedelivery
And your teenage sister slept right through it?
@f00l @Kyeh Yep. All through her shoulder length hair and everywhere.
@f00l @speediedelivery What color was it? This is an epic story!
@Kyeh Light orange/peach. Mom was not pleased but laughing. Teen got the day off from school but she liked going as a social event rather than a learn stuff place.
@speediedelivery Hah, so probably not quite as hard to deal with as blue. How DID they get it off?