Crepey Skin — Crêpe Paper-Like Skin Wrinkling

This Virus Causes Crepey Skin Wrinkles

A wrinkled skin appearance, looking like crêpe paper (crepey skin), appears in many people who catch the Coxsackie B4 virus detailed on this website, a year or so after first catching the virus.

Generally, the wrinkled crepey skin caused by this virus is only noticeable in people older than 30 or so. The crepey skin does not appear in those younger that 30.

For people aged around 30 to 60, the wrinkling induced by this virus is a slight and subtle symptom. However, most people will notice the crepey skin fine wrinkles when they occur, because they arise quickly, within a year or so of catching this virus, and thus their appearance is relatively sudden (compared to aging wrinkles that appear more slowly over the decades).

This virally-caused crepey skin appears most severely in people older than about 60, and in these cases, the wrinkling is more obvious to see. Also in these people over 60, the wrinkles are accompanied by a sagging of the skin. People who are over 60 with this virus will developed crepey saggy skin like the skin images shown in the mid-dermal-elastolysis section below.

Note that the type of crepey skin fine wrinkles caused by this virus are distinct from normal aging wrinkles. Normal aging wrinkles tend to have deeper and wider furrows, which are relatively widely spaced; whereas the wrinkles induced by this virus are very fine, shallow in depth and closely spaced, like the fine grooves on crêpe paper.

Crepey Wrinkles on Top of My Hand

Here are a few more pictures of the fine, crêpe paper-like wrinkles that appeared on the top of my hand about 12 to 18 months after first catching this virus. There is a slight glistening and shiny quality to these crepey skin wrinkles as they catch the light.

Mid-Dermal Elastolysis

The fine wrinkles and crepey skin caused by this Coxsackie B4 virus look very similar to the wrinkles that appear in the skin disease known as mid-dermal elastolysis (MDE). However, mid-dermal elastolysis is not considered a contagious condition, whereas this virally-induced crepey wrinkled skin condition is contagious, and can manifest within 12 months of catching this respiratory virus.

Mid-dermal elastolysis is a very rare disorder of the connective tissue, characterized by fine wrinkling of the skin (most often of the trunk and arms), the fine wrinkling due to a loss of elastic fibers in the mid-dermis layer of the skin. Elastic fibers consist of an elastin core surrounded by microfibrils.

The cause of mid-dermal elastolysis is unknown, although it is believed MDE may be linked to macrophage activation, and/or ultraviolet light exposure.

The mechanism for loss of the elastic fibers in the mid-dermis seems to be related to high levels of the enzyme elastase, and/or high levels of the enzyme MMP-9, the latter being over-expressed in damaged fibroblast-like cells in the skin. Both of these enzymes can degrade and dissolve the elastin which makes up the elastic fibers in the mid-dermis layer of the skin, thus leading to skin damage and a wrinkled appearance.

In addition to MMP-9, other enzymes from the MMP family that degrade elastin are MMP-10, MMP-12 and MMP-20. 1

Mid-dermal elastolysis appears to have some autoimmune features: positive antinuclear antibody titers and false-positive Lyme titers have been detected in MDE. Mid-dermal elastolysis is associated with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Mid-Dermal Elastolysis Crepey Skin

The images below are from patients with mid-dermal elastolysis (not from people with my virus), but in older people, the skin wrinkles caused by the coxsackievirus B4 detailed on this site look very similar. People who are over 60 and catch this Coxsackie virus will tend to get the sort of saggy crepey skin shown in these pictures.