Bleach exposure for years possibly causing issues?

Bones/Joints/Ligaments

Hi, so I used to work as a janitor when I was in college. 4 years of constantly using bleach since that is what they provided and wanted us to clean with. Problem is we didn’t use gloves, ever. The other janitors, mostly older, never used them, though they probably didn’t understand how bad it is. I just followed them because I thought they know better than me. Luckily we did dilute it a bit but we would just use rags drenched in it without any gloves to clean counters and whatnot.

Around that time used to get extremely dry hands, where they would bleed and peel, and when I saw a dermatologist at the time they weren’t sure, but I didn’t think to even tell them about the bleach because I was 19 and dumb. After leaving and not using bleach it took close to 10 years for them to heal, which is around right now. They are mostly healed and not peeling anymore.

Anyways, like 5 years ago I started having extreme hand pain. Like couldn’t hold or press on stuff like on my phone. It isn’t content and flares up every few weeks but doctors are stumped. I told them about the bleach after know better now but they have no clue about it and just say it’s possible.

Just want to ask if anyone on here maybe has any ideas if they are related or not, and anything that can be done.

Posted Sep 13, 2025, 10:47 PM UTC

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