peelinghands

I'm now starting into my third attack (over two years) of an odd, painless, dermal condition which I cannot get a diagnosis or direction on. The condition is as follows:

Initially, a very few (< 10) very tiny little circles of dry skin appear on my hands and feet - usually in the palm, and up the fingers, or on the soles and edges of soles of my feet. They are scattered about a bit, but more often are slightly grouped. The balls of my hands become very slightly itchy and slightly redden. Within a week or so, these broaden and begin to turn into dry flakes which I can pick at and peel off. Eventually, after a few weeks, the insides of my both entire hands will have flaked and peeled off. Then the condition disappears and doesn't return for a long time. The entire condition is only manifested on the inside of my hands, and never appears on the back. There is no real pain or discomfort with it, other than in the first week or two when the balls of my hands are just a little itchy.

I shouldn't complain, it's a very benign condition - but it's a little embarrassing shaking hands with people, with these dry and flaky hands and all this skin quite visibly peeling off. And of course I tend to pick at the skin and that's annoying for me and others.

I've been to two dermatologists about this, and in both cases the response was the same - "We have no idea what this is". They've twice tested for a fungal infection, scraping samples and doing microscopy, but both said there's no evidence of any fungus.

Any ideas?