My I watch series 3 is blistering my wrist

Mine is doing EXACTLY the same thing. The blisters or sores are directly under the watch. The band isn't involved at all. See attached photos of the blisters. I've owned many watches and never had anything like this happen.

I've been diligent about keeping the watch clean etc and it makes no difference. A doctor is obviously going to tell me to stop wearing the watch so that's not a resolution to my problem.

My watch is the Black Stainless Steel model if that's relevant.

I'll be contacting Apple Support to open a case. My $600+ watch is unusable at this point.

Is the rash occurring under the band, or the watch itself? If the band, I would recommend swapping the band out, if the watch, not sure what would cause that, but certainly be careful and seek medical attention if warranted.

davest wrote:

I've been diligent about keeping the watch clean etc and it makes no difference. A doctor is obviously going to tell me to stop wearing the watch so that's not a resolution to my problem.

My watch is the Black Stainless Steel model if that's relevant.

I'll be contacting Apple Support to open a case. My $600+ watch is unusable at this point.

I'm sure Apple Technical Support will do a far better job diagnosing your health issue than your doctor.

Best of luck.

First level support escalated me to the next higher level, who took a bunch of information and the photos and is escalated to engineering. They said it might be 2-3 days. They seemed to be taking it seriously.

I strongly recommend that anyone else with this issue get photos and open a support case.

I suspect the next step will be trying a different watch that doesn’t have the black stainless steel case.

My prediction is the stainless steel case has a very high nickel content and/or it’s leaching an excessive amount of nickel to the skin. Google nickel skin allergy pics. They look very similar.

If it’s a reaction to nickel in the stainless steel, the question is why only this watch? My 10 year old Seiko watch is stainless steel including the band. Never been any problem.

There are many different grades of “stainless steel” each with their own unique chemical analysis and different percentages of nickel and other alloy components. Even the microstructure which depends on how it was heat treated could make a difference to nickel exposed at the surface.

The aluminum body pretty much rules out nickel sensitivity and raises the question whether your new watch is GPS only (composite back) or GPS+LTE (ceramic back).

How long had you been wearing the watch in one session when you noticed the irritation. And roughly how long (hours, days, weeks, etc) since you bought it and first started wearing it?

I still tend to suspect some kind of irritant trapped behind the watch rather than sensitivity to the materials in the watch. Is that possible?

My new Series 3 is GPS+Cellular so it’s ceramic. But I think that applies to the “dome” area of the back. The rest of it is case, which is stainless. Look at the pattern of marks in one of my pics. They’re arranged around the corners of the back.

There’s no possibility in my mind of contamination from anything except the new watch. I’ve had many watches spanning decades, and this has never happened.

I noticed irritation on about Day 2. By Day 4 it was an angry red blister. Covered that one with a spot bandaid and continued wearing the watch. it healed. But 3-4 other new ones popped up around it.

There’s no suspect except the new watch. I’m wearing my old Seiko again and the sores are already healing.

Davest, please stop hijacking @Hairdiva5848’s thread and disrupting the flow of messages. It should have been obvious to you from the mention of aluminum body that I was not addressing your concerns. Please go post your problem in a new thread.

Apple’s official response to my blistering problem: Too bad. Don’t wear it. We will neither exchange it for one with a different case material nor refund you. But we’ll send you some info on how to wear a watch and keep it clean. Maybe try returning it to Best Buy even though you're beyond the return window and there’s a restocking fee on Apple Watches.

Have a nice day.

davest wrote:

Apple’s official response to my blistering problem: Too bad. Don’t wear it. We will neither exchange it for one with a different case material nor refund you. But we’ll send you some info on how to wear a watch and keep it clean. Maybe try returning it to Best Buy even though you're beyond the return window and there’s a restocking fee on Apple Watches.

Have a nice day.

Well, given that Apple is not a doctor, it seems unlikely that they would be able to offer you medical advice. What did your doctor tell you?

You could well have developed an allergy to some constituent component of the watch. Make an appointment with your doctor.

I'm on the phone with Support right now...