Chilblains have anyone ever got it?

[Tipnatee N]

I know it's the winter illness but with fibromyalgia I suddenly getting them during summer heat . I'm very puzzling by it. When I was living in New Zealand 20 years ago I was diagnosed with this symptom call Chilblain . Chilblain is a very painful burning itchy red swollen on fingers and toes resembling a frostbite sometimes starting with red spotting color mix with white spotting and it get worsen mostly my toes skin turn darker bruised and I can no longer walk cause my toes would looking just like a zombie toes ( if it was a real frostbit it would look like I was ready for amputation) or completely lost the use of my hands cause I can't close any of my fingers do to severely stiff swollen ached till the symptoms would disappear on it's own which is normally last for a month or two mostly because of the changing in weather.

I'm battling this thing for 20 years every winter , and it's not causing by the cold it self but the sudden heat shock from the heater from indoor when I came back in that triggers it. I have low blood pressure, and anemia problem so I suspectedly that's the reason why do to normally very cold hand cold feet would be so easily shock by temperature change so much. My best tricks to combating chilblains is to slowly bring my hands and feet back to normal room temperature underwater in the tub by constantly adjusting the temperature water flow as slow as possible everytime it's happened and preventing from further coloring as earliest possible.

Well now I get the summer chilblains , it started to happen on summer after my doctor suspected fibromyalgia and finally properly diagnosed . I only get it if I walk too much , over heating my hands and feet with something , or standing on my feet for too long period of times. It'a so red and swallowing up so much I call them the lobster claws cause it's sure really looks like it. :shock: It could be because of Hypohidrosis ( incapable of sweating for the purpose of release body heat) , I still have no idea. Does anyone know anything about it or experiencing anything like this before??? I have suffer enough of other common allergies so I know it's not allergies reaction in anyway possible , but I can't keep swinging these lobster claws around much longer without desired to chop it off everytime this happen.

 

[vickythecat]

Gosh, I had written a long reply to you, but it disappeared when our electricity was cut off. The construction next door is driving me insane!

Never mind me... I have to admit I had never heard of Chiblains before even though I should know better. I've been suffering from Raynaud's since I was 13 years old. Some years are worse than others and knock on wood, in part thanks to many precautions I have taken, I have not the very painful, itchy - yet dead feet and fingers in a while.

One thing I always do when I feel like I might have a bad Raynaud's day/week is drink lots of water, keep moving (nothing like exercising, but just moving my hands/fingers/toes/feet constantly, walking, stretching) and keep my skin well creamed. I use these very oily creams for my feet, less oily ones for my hands and I apply many many times during the day. The massaging helps too, I suppose.

I can't imagine going through what you are going through all year long though - I hope you see your doctor about it. It could be related to your vitamin/mineral deficiencies, fibromyalgia, exhaustion, stress etc. If one part of our body is not well oiled, other parts start to malfunction as well. But our hands and feet are so important - so please take real good care of yourself. All the best!

 

[Tipnatee N]

Awe I wish I could read your long post. But thank you so much for replied. Yes I do know quite well about raynaud's cause my chilblains had been mistaken for raynaud's for 6 months when it was first started do to how bruised and perpleish it could gets when severe. And with anemia how could it not be easily mistaken. I too was bathing them in oil before but because the aching itchy burning sensation so I was using the Vick rub most of the time. I always have very bad circulation, many time I'm hospitalized I seem to have woken up with something like the electric air pump boots or heating pads that the doctors or nurses had already put on my legs cause I guess my feet got too scary freezing for them while I wasn't looking. My normal cold feet actually doesn't make me feel sick but warm feet does ( kinda odd I know most doctor doesn't believe me either) but I really enjoy the electric air pump boots a lot. I was thinking of getting them my self but they're quite expensive. I'm also kind of curious if it might also help claim my restless leg at night.
Anyway when I was diagnosed with chilblain my doctor prescribed some kind of tongue drops medication. It didn't actually do anything for me at all. Then they tried prescription creams for chilblain, that didn't work for me either and so on for 2 years nothing would works. That's how I accidentally found the way to stop it my self which only happened all thanks to the broken water heater on one night. I was trying to wash my painful feet in the tub but the water was so slowly heating , I was impatient and since my toes felt burn anyway I couldn't careless of how cold the water was ( it actually felt good when cool down). After the heat finally reached the warm temperature in the tub almost an hour later , I look down and to my surprise it actually cured my zombie toes. I mean my pink color had came back from the dead!! After I saw that I quickly dried my feet off oil them up and put in a warm socks and booties. I couldn't feel more lucky to be alive at that moment. Ever since then that's all I have been dealing with it. But man... having it on summer is just suck. It quicker fix than the winter but now I have to keep them cool at all time. I can't wear shoes . And I can't do oil for summer cause it keep more heat lock in and made my swollen toes or fingers burning even more. So no butter for my lobster.:-( . I'm so very sorry you have to deal with raynaud's . I think I can imagine how painful that it could gets, so no hand shakes for us I guess. XOXO stay strong and lobster hug! :smile:

 

[vickythecat]

Thanks for the lobster hug! Lobsters are very intelligent beings by the way - they recognize other individual lobsters, build up relationships, remember past friends/other lobsters they've met! (I love all animals and am fascinated by their individual unique traits!)

What are electric air pump boots? I googled it quickly but saw all kinds of results. I am open to anything that might help with Raynaud's!

 

[Tipnatee N]

Air electric compression boots for legs and feet , funny you mention searching for it cause I just look it up again after many years just now and the price seem to have dropping down so much this pass few years. But make sure to get the corrects one for promoting circulation, the air will automatically pump in to the boots then release and pump in air again then release over and over.

Cause unfortunately I've bought some bargain one before in the passed and it Turn out to be a vibration air boots , with blow up air boots and electric vibrating ( dawn it!) I've been had.:x

I love lobster too they can be very beautiful, I'm glad they have a law against harvesting over large size lobster now cause they can live for hundreds of years might even be longer than turtles.