Your hands and arms look exactly like mine. I have the thin transparent skin and bulging veins caused by prednisone too. And it's spooky when we make a fist how we can see the white knuckle bones just below the skin. It's a new body awareness when you can see through the skin to the workings underneath... eeek.

I'm so sorry that Prednisone does this to your skin. I think women are more susceptible to skin thinning. Nurses who start IVs on me say I have "thick skin." That was only true for my arms. I had very thin skin over my shins when I was on Prednisone. I used to start IVs on patients and I can see how fragile your skin and veins look. How are your bones?

I like wearing shorts in the summer but any sun at all on my legs felt like fire when my skin was thin. After I got off Prednisone, the skin on my legs thickened again. Now I have opaque white patches that I can't see through. I think the white patches are mostly scar tissue. I wear shorts again but my legs don't look so good. The white patches never tan like the rest of my legs do.

Hi
I'm male, 74 years old and had very difficult symptoms for many years without a diagnosis. Recently had a huge increase in some of my symptoms which, through blood tests, suggest PMR. So now on prednisone and not feeling much better with some new symptoms making me feel worse.

I have the same problem with my hands, veins and thin crepy skin. But I have dry, sensitive skin all over anyway. My hands can look like yours in the photo when they've been down by my side for a while which, to me, suggests that gravity is simply moving more blood down into the veins in my hands. Often they can look very swollen. I do have arthritis in my shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands. However, when my arms are elevated or horizontal for a while they look much better, almost youthful again. No redness, veins look normal again and skin looks smoother. The difference between the two is incredible. If I took photos of my hands when they are so different in appearance you wouldn't think they belonged to the same person. I don't think it's from prednisone as they've been like this for quite a few years. Plus, my wife has developed exactly the same thing and she's never taken prednisone. She also has problems with arthritic shoulders, spine and neck issues and, like me, finds it difficult to raise her arms much above her head. Again, with her I can see it's probably a problem with blood circulation and gravity. We're both losing strength and muscle mass on our arms too.

The thin skin I'm beginning to realize is a lack of collagen production as we age which is fairly normal but which is also very much linked to inflammatory and autoimmune diseases affecting not only skin but muscles, tendons and other parts of the body in some cases with some pretty serious problems that can arise from it. I've put some links below. There's a lot more of course online about collagen and collagen deficiency.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/23089-collagen
https://www.careinsurance.com/blog/health-insurance-articles/collagen-deficiency-the-reason-behind-your-skin-lacks-elasticity
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24342-collagen-vascular-disease

I had Covid in 2020. It resulted in the skin you described plus Rosasea. 5 years later. I now developed PMR. I really don't think my skin can get any worse. Trying to get off prednisone. Down to 5mg. On Kevzara, 4th dose. Going to try to taper Prednisone further as Kevzara seems to be helping. Have changed my diet and am getting PT and OT to regain strength. Here's hoping...