Have you ever stopped to think that your fingerprints could disappear?
No, I'm not talking about science fiction movies or police series. I'm talking about real life. Those unique lines we carry from before we're born, which we use every day to unlock our phones, make payments, open bank accounts, or register our identity, can become so faint that they practically vanish. I always believed that fingerprints were permanent and immutable for life. But I was completely wrong. I discovered this in practice when I went to update a document at a public department.
When I got there, the employee asked me to place my fingers on the biometric reader. That's when I realized the problem: some of my fingerprints simply weren't registering. He asked me what had happened, and I replied that I had no idea. In fact, I never imagined that fingerprints could weaken like that. I had never imagined that something so personal and unique could disappear.
We managed to register some digital accounts with considerable difficulty. Curious, I asked the person assisting me what might be causing this. He explained that digital technologies can weaken or become almost invisible due to various factors:
Chemicals, medicines and aggressive substances
Excessive wear and tear from manual labor or repetitive use.
Natural skin aging
Skin diseases
Burns or deep cuts
I went home really worried, reviewing what I could have done wrong to make my hands so weak. It was only after a lot of research that I understood that most of the time it's nothing serious. Our skin simply reacts to daily life, holding our cell phones for hours on end, washing a lot of dishes, or suffering from natural dryness.
Important tips for taking care of your fingerprints:
Moisturize your hands daily with a good hand cream, preferably at night.
Use gloves when washing dishes or using cleaning products.
Take breaks when using your cell phone, switch hands, or rest it on something to reduce friction.
In most cases, fingerprints reappear within a few weeks, once the skin is given a break. If the problem persists for a long time, as it did for me, it's worth consulting a dermatologist.
Ultimately, our fingerprints may not be permanent, but with a little attention and care they last much longer than we imagine.
Thank you for reading.
Image 1: https://br.freepik.com/
Image 2: https://www.pexels.com/pt-br/
