Skin management

A thorny issue. Skin management should be quite simple, but it seems very easy to get wrong, and when it has been mismanaged can set you back weeks,
or possibly longer. As you meet other climbers you will notice varying
levels of exellence regards managing skin condition, from the non existant
(andi_e and squiff) to the expert (jon fullwood). The basic rules are simple
:


1. Splits - sand them till smooth. Grit your teeth, deal with the pain
and get rid of the burr.
2. Dont stop sanding them after the first time - the regrown skin needs
to keep being sanded or else you get a thick hard area, possibly with a
further impurity which will split again.
3. Sand your fingers down after the shower when you are hot and wet.
4. Always have some sand paper in your chalk bag. Aluminium oxide paper
seems pretty good.
5. Stop climbing before you put a tip through. To stop now is to be able
to climb again in a couple of days, to hole a tip is to be out of action for
longer.
6. After sanding moisturise.
7. After climbing, inspect, sand, moisturise
8. If you go in the sea - moisturise.
9. Even if its nearly healed, climb with tape covering the split. You can
remove it for one redpoint, but this is a high risk strategy.
10. Always tape a clean finger.

Your skin type may change the number of days, and the amount of time and
quantity of moisturiser you will use but the principles are the same.

In summer I get splits at pad creases - from crimping when its hot and your
skin is soft. These deep fissures are easy to tape, but take ages to heal.
The reason for writing this today is that I got one a few weeks ago, managed
it just about better, but allowed a ripple at the corner to develop. Had
this been taken off before climbing then it wouldn't have split again.
Balls.