I need written documentation indicating how long it takes for
callousse (hyperkeratosis) of the hands due to occupational activities
to go away. A research paper with methodologic protocol would be best;
references from medical textbooks also acceptable. Will need actual
reference with copy of applicable pages from journal article or text.

I have spent a fair amount of time on PubMed without success and also
tried searching Amazon. I think the best approach would be for someone
in a metropolitan area to go to a medical library and look at
dermatology, occupational medicine or orthopedic (hand) textbooks. The
appropriate pages could then be copied and emailed to me.

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Clarification of Question by drrjv-ga on 02 Dec 2003 12:31 PST

I do not need a copy of research papers as they are available thru
interlibrary loan. Textbooks are more difficult as I am not sure I can
obtain them on loan. If a photo copy of the page could not be made
available, I would accept references and quoted excerpts (in quotes).
More than one reference would also be helpful.

I would strongly consider a 'tip' depending on the quality of the
information made available.

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Clarification of Question by drrjv-ga on 05 Dec 2003 19:29 PST

Another source to check would be podiatric text books, as all of us
have callouses on our feet! I appreciate all the work everyone is
doing on this question.

drrjv,

Just to let you know, we don't copy things and send them directly to
question askers.  It's, as I understand it, against the terms of
service agreement where researchers do not have direct contact with
requestors.  However, a researcher could find you references which you
could then obtain via your local library's interlibrary loan service
or via the Loansome Doc service from the National Library of Medicine
(linked through PubMed).  If that would be of interest, please let us
know so that someone can work on your question without worrying about
not being able to send you the actual paper copies.

librariankt

I looked in green's textbook of hand surgery and found nothing on this matter.

Hi drrjv,

I've researched your question from a couple of different angles now
and have come up with nothing. I just wanted to mention that perhaps
the direction to go would be that of forensics. Maybe a forensic
pathologist or anthropologist would have some idea of how to relate
the presense or thinning of calouses to the time since they were
formed.

Just a thought ...

-K~

I cannot give you any figures but I am sure that it depends largely on
the current environment that your feet are exposed to. If they are
still in the same situation that created the callouses you can expect
a much longer recovery time.