Renauds Disease

I was Dx with Renauds yesterday.  2 winters ago I suffered from hyperthermia during a  severe winter. I became paralyzed from the exposure one day and was found by a friend standing on my porch trying to get thru the door into my house. I couldn't lift my legs to walk forward and was having great difficulty breathing. She saw me standing there motionless and stopped to see what was wrong. She ended up pushing me thru the doorway and over to the sofa. That is where my daughter found me 2 dayas later.  I had to work outside 7 days a week 5 hours a day. Didn't make any difference what the weather was, freezing rain, blizzard and snow,  my employer didn't care. He just wanted the livestock fed no matter what. There was many days I would sit in the bathroom and cry because my hand and feet hurt so bad when they would start to warm up. And  last winter wasn't much better with the record snow fall. At least I wasn't wet from the freezing rain. I have been doing this work every winter now for 15 yrs. And am in good physical health up til now.  This winter my employer my cut my pay from $60 to $20 a day for doing this job. I told him that I wasn't going to do it for that. He said there were so many people out of work that he could get anyone to do it. And he did.  So this winter I have stayed warm and dry and only went out a few times.   Then 2 weeks ago my fingers started to turn purple and almost black. They then began to swell also and the tip became so sensitive that just picking up a pencil was painful.  Half the time I just fumbled around and dropped everything I touched.  How could this happen ? Were the vessels in my fingers perm. damaged by the freezing .  Will this eventually go away ?  and the vessels repair themself.  How can I sit around the reset of my life wearing gloves. It's not only embarrassing but limits the quality of my life.  It might as well be a death sentence


This discussion is related to Is Renaud's connected to heart problems.

[ireneo]

Raynauds is a circulatory problem and generally doesn't go away like a cold or a typical skin rash. Many people with Raynauds end up taking a calcium channel blocker that helps somewhat. Another thing to consider is that Raynauds can be primary or secondary. That is, it can just be a circulatory problem that causes your hands, feet and areas of the face to turn blue, white, red, even develop cracks and sores as you experienced. Or it could be secondary to something more serious like lupus, RA, Sjorgrens, etc. all of which are autoimmune problems.

If you haven't been seen by a rheumatologist, you may want to do that to make sure you "only" have primary Raynauds. Even with that, they can give you information on how to deal with it.

There is also a website devoted to people with Raynauds. They share their experience and ideas for living with this. I have Raynauds but not too severe. You can google the term, see what you find in terms of information. I can't share the website here. And if you check on "forums" at the top of this page, they may have a spot for Raynauds. I haven't looked into that.

[ChatterAlly]

I'm sorry to hear of your woes. I too have Raynauds Syndrome and it has nothing to do with the weather. While the cold weather brings it out more, or even being in the frozen food section of the grocery. I live in south Texas where severe cold is almost never a problem.  I have CAD and have had a few heart attacks.  Recently I went to the ER thinking I was having yet another heart attack. But it was found, that although I had another blockage, the chest pains I was h aving was actually spasms.  This is what Reynauds is. The smaller vessels go into spasms.  I feel there must be some link between these and my heart spasms.  My advice to you is to consult your doctor for some simple tests.  The one thing I noticed is that you describe your fingers as turning black and purple.  In my case they turn a vivid white. And when they begin to warm they turn a bright red. See your doctor again and have some simple tests.  Like my friend Irene said there are meds to take to help with this. And I have recently found that I do have RA. No fun there.  Take care, Ally

[ChatterAlly]

Irene, you made a connection for me that I didn't even think about before reading your post. Thank you!  It all makes sense now.  I have an over active immune system and I develope these painful cracks on my fingertips.  The skin becomes so dry that it starts to crack open. The crack resembles a clean cut, becomes painful and lasts for days before healing.  I had developed symptoms of RA, with some of my joints literally stuck in a weird position when I woke up.  I would have to put my joint back in place manually.  The joint was stuck!  Since being diagnosed with the vasopspasms last April I was put on Norvasc (the calcium channel blocker)  I hadn't noticed this before your post, but my joints have not been sticking like that since starting on the Norvasc.  Could it be????? That would make mine Secondary.  Thanks, Ally

[ireneo]

I don't know if the CCB is helping. It would be nice if it did. When I was being a good girl and taking my Diltiazem every day, I had less trouble with my Raynauds. My hands and feet were not turning that ugly blue/gray color so frequently.