swollen and red fingertips (hands and toes)

[kasiss]

Hello!
My fingertips started to feel tingly while i was holding a cold drink. This happened in July this year. Usually when you freeze your fingers and they star to warm up, the feel tingly, but this felt hot and itchy. The tips of my fingers started to swell up. This lasted about half an hour. After that, it´s been happening often when i touch cold things for more than like five minutes. When the weather starts getting colder, my hands and feet feel tingly. My dermatologist told me it could be cold urticaria (hives), but i saw some pictures of people who have on their fingers and what happens to me doesn´t looke anything like it.
Then i read about Raynaud's syndrome. Found it a bit more similar. Though my fingers only turn red, not white, blue and red. Could someone tell me why this is happening to me?

[HJane]

Having started out with your complaints, and having finally just been diagnosed with scleroderma, I think it is particularly important that your doctor order the ANA, SCL-70, and anticentromere B tests. The nailfold capillaroscopy is also very important. Please ask your doctor to place a special request to the lab to do the ANA by the IFA method. The newer methods such as Multiplex which most labs are using these days, usually give false negatives for scleroderma patients. Many docs are not yet aware of that fact, unfortunately.

[kasiss]

thank you..this helps alot. i will do the tests and post back here :D

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello,

Cold and tingly fingers on exposure to cold may be due to many possibilities.First and foremost cold urticaria has to be ruled out. Cold urticaria is diagnosed by holding an ice cube against the skin of the forearm for 1 to 5 minutes. A distinct hive should develop if a patient has cold urticaria.

Other possibilities are hypothyroidism, peripheral neuropathy,peripheral vascular disease,
Raynaud's phenomenon or thoracic outlet syndrome(due to entrapment and compression of the nerves of brachial plexus).

I sincerely advise you to consult a physician and discuss these possibilities with him.Thorough investigations like thyroid profile,nerve conduction tests,MRI spine at thoracic and cervical levels,ESR, antinuclear antibody test (ABA), nailfold capillary study and  cold stimulation test may be needed to confirm a diagnosis.

Hope it helps.Take care and pls do keep us posted if you have any additional queries.