Salty hands and lower arms. Weird..maybe an answer..

[meirish]

I think I have posted about my hands and arms in the last year or so. I have a picky neuropathy that is worse and then better but never gone. I also have had a salty taste in my mouth and a salty taste on my hands and lower arms. I have had times when the sun reflects off my hands and I can see the salt crystals. Really weird.

When I have this horrible feeling with dryness and a tightness that is hurtful I will put on lots of hand lotion and rub it round and round. I can literally feel that there is something that is causing a buildup in the hand lotion. I then wipe the lotion off my hands and I can feel the skin feeling lighter and less irritated.

I am having chronic kidney disease and just saw a nephrologist. I was impressed with his knowledge. I have asked every doc I know about my salty issue and so I asked him. He thinks it is my Sjogrens. He says that sjogrens affects the secreting glands and he thinks that there is an interruption in the salt/sweat process that is causing this.

I can't remember the terms but I bet Linda 196 will know. I am of the opinion that he has come the closest to answering my question. I have gotten drier in my eyes and mouth in the past year+ and I am also sweating like crazy when I do any little bit of physical work. I sweat so on my head that I have to remove my hearing aides so that I don't damage them. By the time I die I will be pickled and I don't even drink.

My hands hurt so at night that I wear latex gloves to bed and in the morning my hands are wet from the moisture buildup and they don't hurt for a while. Crazy....but it works and it doesn't cost that much for the gloves. Anybody else have this issue. I had questioned the neuropathy from the spinal cord damage from the disc in my neck just prior to my spinal fusion. Nobody thinks the salty stuff is from that. It is totally weird that is for sure. meirish

[sixty]

That's mysterious Irish.  Do you eat a lot of salt?  I'm wondering if you should be taking salt tablets on the days you sweat a lot.  Just to be on the safe side.  When I went to Outward Bound as a teenager we hiked for several miles each day, sweating in excess along with it.  They made us take salt tablets to compensate for all the salt we lost during that time.

[meirish]

I eat enough salt as my blood work is normal. I found some info on line that acknowledged that salt metabolism within the cells, etc is weird in sjogrens but didn't go into it in depth.I will have to ask my kidney doc what words to use for a search. I have blood work done a lot as I have so many specialists and blood work is done for each of them for a different reason. My insurance company has paid out a whole bunch on me over many years. meirish

[meirish]

I am having a hard time explaining this....it isn't like I am losing salt from my body but that my body is finding different ways and places to put the salt. It is like the oral mucus and our salivary glands. Our glands (with the sjogrens) secrete muvcus differently ad awe end up with strange salivary glands with thick mucus and salivary stones. I get small gravel or stones in my glands under my tongue.

The sublingual glands will get plugged with thick mucus and then I will get very small salty crust that will build up on my dentures. I will have to brush then really hard to get this crusty stuff of. Sometimes I will have really6 small stones that will come out of these under the tongue glands. Also will have swelling underneath my chin on the right side and up on the side of the face. This is not from the right submaxillary gland as I had that surgically removed 11 years ago. Some of the swelling is probably from the right parotid gland which swells some and gets sore.

Anyway, the arm salt(according to the doc) is from the sweat glands that make weird sweat and get loaded with the salt which shows up on my skin. I have perspired in my upper body and head for years but the head has gotten worse. I get the worst itching on my head and at first I thought it was from dandruff or scalp issues but nothing really showed up and saw deem for it. Finally figured out that after I sweat so much my head would start itching so bad. I think it is salt that is deposited on my head from the sweat. The only thing that helps is to wash my hair. I now use no products on my hair and so the itching is not from any hair product.

All I can say is I would not wish this issue on anyone. It won't kill me but it is miserable. I need to talk to more docs and find someone that can tell me the exact mechanism that is taking place with this thing. I watch my electrolytes closely and they are done a lot with all my other issues and my lytes are always good..even with my kidney issues. Thanks. meirish


P.S. I think I forgot to also say that this salty issue causes pain in my hands and arms. It is a pulling drawing pressure and I have pain in my fingers that doesn't seem to be from neuropathy. My muscles in my hands are shrinking. I almost feel like the meat in my muscles is drying up. Enough said I guess..it is mine and I have to live with it. Just would be interesting to know if anyone else has experienced anything like this.

[Scottietottie]

Hi 

I also appear to taste salty. Rather than getting a salty taste in  my mouth though I get a citric taste. I have no idea why.

take care - Scottie 

[susanep]

It wasn't long ago that I had a day I told my husband it felt like salt in my mouth but I had not eaten anything with salt. It was a very noticeable experience to me also. I am getting drier every where now too. It's so frustrating. The worst is still no energy

Susanep