Red hands

Hey everyone.  So I woke up this morning with red palms and fingers including the nail beds??  Also the bottoms of my feet are tender to stand on.   Any ideas?

Jennie

[rumpled]

Do you by any chance have a carbon monoxide alarm anywhere in your house? If you do, make sure it is on. I would go see a doctor ASAP - being that red can be a skin thing, but can also be a CO issue.

[Audrey_M]

I waited for someone else to post first.

Oddly enough, I woke up to bright red hands too this morning. It was more pronounced in the right hand and the color contrast against my pale white thighs was striking. It also seemed that my fingers were slightly swollen.

The discoloration lasted only about an hour.

On Wednesday of this week, a coworker asked if I was okay. I asked why and he told me my face was very red. I've been in a lot of pain and don't know if this had anything to do with it. I did look in the mirror, and yes, my face was very red.

Are your hands back to normal color now?

Curious to see what kind of answers come back.

Audrey

[kelly97]

My sister-in-law has Raynaud's disease/syndrome and she gets discoloration in her hands off and on. Could it possibly be that....I don't know?

[Quixotic1]

Look up erythromelalgia.  I have burning redness of my right foot after being very warm.  Some articles have listed MS as being one of the systemic diseases in which Erythromelalgia is seen.

Here is one article:

http://www.medlink.com/medlinkcontent.asp

Here is another - scroll way down to see the part that applies

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec03/ch034/ch034c.html

and

http://dermnetnz.org/vascular/erythromelalgia.html

I think Mrs. Aristotle complains of this.

Quix

[Audrey_M]

Interesting info from Quix. Makes more sense to me than Raynauds, because I had just gotten out of a toasty warm bed. So warm, in fact, that I was hot.

The one piece that is missing for me is that there was no burning pain. My whole hand was tingling; this is something new over the past few days. Before it was limited to the pinky and ring finger along with the palm area below those fingers.

Jennie did mention burning pain.

Just another one of those things to add to the list. It's so hard to make sense of what is important and what is not; my personal belief is that I should not be making that decision and give the medical profession the whole picture. Yet reality is that doctors often just dismiss the "little things" that could in fact pull everything together in terms of the big picture.

Jennie, I hope this gives you something to go by.

Thanks, Quix.

Audrey

[Quixotic1]

Audrey - As in all things neurological, the "pain" part of it might be relative.  Tingling and mild burning may be felt as uncomfortable by some and as pain by others.  I think any off sensation should match the requirements.

I agree that many doctors dismiss the very little bits of evidence that would have made the whole picture make sense had they known more - or been willing to think.

My old, evil neuro did diagnose me with Restless Limb Syndrome, but because his mind was closed to the possibility of MS, he either didn't put the RLS into the mix with my weakness, spasticity,vertigo, ataxic gait, and urinary incontinence to come to a heightened suspicion of MS or he was too uneducated to know that RLS is more common in MS than in the general population.  OR he was too arrogant to rethink his assessment of me as a hysterical woman.

The redness of the hands and feet can be seen as a malfunction of the neurovascular system - part of the ANS.

Quix

[Ndobbins]

My hands stay ice cold most of the time. They do however get red & very hot at times too.

[MrsAristotle]

Hi Quix yes I get this on and off its quite bizarre. The sole of my foot becames very red or mottley looking (left usually) and I have pain in my foot and yes my foot gets warm. I wondered at first if it was because of an injury in that particular foot?

It hasnt got worse as yet but I know how to contain it. At night I have a blanket cage which covers my legs and stops them getting warm, however I have noted of late blood on my sheets where I am scratching the front of both of my legs but more so the left one (shin) but it isnt really seen so far up the leg so that could be something else lol.....my shin often burns.

So really it is a case of not being too warm. I find the bath will bring on an attack too, so anyway I have had the bath removed this week and had a full shower fitted so no more hot bath syndrome for me lol.

Thank you thank you thank you Quix for taking the time to pop in and tell me about this.

I am still waiting for diagnosis, I think it is a toss up between lupus or MS.....its just convincing the docs that lol.

[MrsAristotle]

oh forget one way I know i am in for attack is my toes start to burn like i have frost bite.

[Audrey_M]

Slept on this one last night and then read Mrs. Aristotle's posts this morning as well as searching the forum for prior posts with the keyword erythromelalgia.

This may have started for me back in August of last year, with one incident in August and another in October.

The first one happened when walking back from my Sexual Harassment training. I felt a sharp pain just at the cuff line of my pants. Within ten minutes, my foot started turning bright red, beginning down by the toes. I thought I might have been stung by a wasp and took some benadryl. The redness continued to spread up to the top of my foot above the ankle over the next 6 hours (but never hit the initial pain site) and was accompanied by heat and itching. The benadryl did not stop the reaction and I had never had this kind of reaction to any bug bite before. BTW, I did let co-workers know what had happened in case I went into anaphylactic shock.

What was even stranger is that I could find no specific bite mark, even though I knew where I felt the initial pain. Even used a magnifying glass, but found nothing!

I called my doctor's practice after hours 5 days later because it was not improving and I was also on Coumadin for DVTs. The on call physician said that I had probably been stung by a wasp and that the feet are highly sensitive. Felt like I had been blown off.

It took my foot one full month to return to normal. During that month, I would have bouts of the foot being red or mottled, along with some swelling, burning and itching. I went to a walk in clinic and was given a steroid cream that did nothing.

In October, I was definitely stung by a wasp on my right hand. I felt the sting and saw the wasp, along with the mark where I had been stung. That night, my hand turned bright red. Great, once again it's after hours, so I get a different on call physician. Gave him a run down, including the prior episode in August. He prescribed antibiotics.

The redness, minor swelling and heat took about 2 weeks to resolve. The abx caused my INR to go completely out of whack (as with the last instance) where I was at risk of bleeding out.

In hindsight, it appears that these two episodes could have been erythromelalgia. Web search does produce some link to allergic reactions, but none specific to wasp stings.

???? Connection or not?

Audrey

[Jennie1977]

We have a CO monitor in the house and it is near my room so I don't think that is the issue.  But thanks for that info.  I didn't know that was a symptom of CO poisoning.

Jennie

[Jennie1977]

I have looked into Raynaud's disease/syndrome  and erythromelalgia.  The problem is is that I don't really fit into either of those.  My skin doesn't get hot. It's just that my palms and tops of my fingers are red.  I did notice though if I am out and about a bit of a swelling/"burning" in my hands starting at palm area under my thumbs and it itches a bit.  As far as my feet, they are just very very tender on the bottoms.  Also it seems as though at night my hands circulation is being cut off at the wrist.  I also have had crazy joint pain as of lately and spastic muscles.  I'm getting "mushy brain" from trying to pick through diagnosis possibilities.  

[kelly97]

Thanks for posting on this question Quix. I had actually posted a question about my symptoms on Friday, that sound similar to your post on here - erythromelalgia - I had never heard of this before.

I get burning, redness, and heat on my left ear off and on all the time lately.

-Kelly