I have a nickel allergy that recently flared up with exposure to a zipper, and around the same time I also started having trouble with my wedding ring leaving a red, sometimes scaly mark around my finger. I've been married for 17 years are very rarely take my ring off. This summer has been very hot, obviously, so I've been chalking this up to both heat swelling/sweat rashes and possibly some perimenopausal water retention. I've never had a long-term problem with gold causing problems, though. Any ideas to curb it? I thought perhaps, too, that my ring could need a good cleaning, so I did that, and it's not really helped. I tried soaking it periodically in witch hazel, which often soothes skin irritation in me, and that didn't really help, either. For now, I'm taking it off at night and putting Burt's Bees hand salve on my ring finger. At the height of the irritation earlier this summer, I wore a sterling silver ring on my ring finger instead, and that caused no additional irritation. I love my wedding ring and don't want to not wear it, and I worry I'm giving my husband a complex by continually taking it off. He understands that it's a skin problem, but the whole thing gives me anxiety and sorrow.