A cure for cold hands?

Hi folks:

Seeing how ice season is now fully upon us, I was wondering if anyone might have any ideas on how I might cure myself of chronic cold hands.

I'm generally a pretty chilly guy - always need a few more layers than everyone else - but in the last few years my hands have made most outings between November and March relatively unpleasant. I can be plenty warm in my core (sometimes even sweating) and still be fighting to keep my hands from going numb. (This happens while hiking, not just while climbing with my hands above my heart.) My first thought was I needed better gloves, and I finally invested for this season. Trouble is, the last few weeks I've been biking around the city in the biggest, fluffiest mitts made by Cloudveil and I'm STILL fighting to keep my hands at a reasonable temp. One night last week, on the 15 minute ride home in mildly chilly temps (~20 deg F), my digits got cold enough that I needed to rewarm them under tap water when I got home. (To be clear, I'm NOT knocking Cloudveil - I'm pretty sure the problem is with me.)

My doctor-in-training partner says she thinks it's Reynaud's syndrome, but I tend not to get the discoloration that is usually included in medical descriptions of that syndrome. I think it's more mundane - after years of buying bad gloves, my body has reset the point at which it cuts off blood supply to my hands.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? And, more to the point, has anyone found an effective treatment? Looking online, there's several variations on what to do: alternating hot/cold soaks; alternating hot soaks inside and then outside, etc. Anyone found one of these to work for them?

For the record, I don't smoke and my caffeine intake is low - I don't usually drink coffee. Both caffeine and smoking have been found to be vasoconstrictors, and thus these are usually the first things people ask me.

I'm no Doctor and know nothing about Reynaud's but here's my $.02

When you're riding a bike in the cold you're generally squeezing the bars and restricting circulation even more. It's almost not possible to keep 'em warm without chemical heat packs or some kind of battery powered deal. Keep your grip loose, or if it's not too icy ride with one hand and alternate.

Stay really, really well hydrated and keep your core warm. The old swinging your arms in circles like a crazy person trick also works well for me. I look like an idiot doing it but hey whatever.

I think the surefire cure would be moving to a warm sunny climate.

Hey Coz - Have you tried these Handwarmers..?

Reynauds is often caused, or exacerbated by a food allergy. Try cutting out gluten and dairy and see what happens. However, what you described, warm core, cold extremities, is know as "false cold." You have stuck liver chi, take ginkgo biloba, prickly ash bark, yellow dock root, st. johns wort, and bupleurum, these should all be available at a decent health food store (whole foods, vitamin cottage, etc.) and should clear that up asap.

For biking get poggies. They rock out for winter. I can do below zero with summer or liner gloves with my Epic Designs poggies.

For winter/climbing I'm not much help yet.

Post edited "Sorry, meant no offense"

Seriously though, you could try aspirin or Ibuprofen or some other vasodiolator. But if it is that severe, talk to a doctor.

Ok -- well, I have Reynaud's, and whenever I touch anything cold for any length of time, my digits go completely white and numb up to the palm of the hand. This even happens on the first route in the climbing gym. It's not fun to deal with but I have learned to manage it.

Indoors, when it happens, I run my fingers under warm water until all of the color comes back. Then it seems not to happen again.

Outdoors -- climbing in the winter/early spring is the worst time Nonetheless, I keep handwarmers in my pockets (I buy them in bulk at Sportsman's Wearhouse) and stick my hand into my pocket whenever possible. My fingers still go numb from time to time, but it helps a little.

I always wear mittens driving when its cold because my fingers go numb when I touch the steering wheel. My suggestion when biking is to wear mittens with handwarmers over the tops of the fingers. Keep hot water or a hot drink in your pack in one of the vaccuum sealed canisters. Warm them up with that if they get too cold.

It's a pain to deal with, but it seems once I get them warm, it doesn't happen again for a while. Good luck!

LIV wrote:Ok -- well, I have Reynaud's, and whenever I touch anything cold for any length of time, my digits go completely white and numb up to the palm of the hand. This even happens on the first route in the climbing gym. It's not fun to deal with but I have learned to manage it. Indoors, when it happens, I run my fingers under warm water until all of the color comes back. Then it seems not to happen again. Outdoors -- climbing in the winter/early spring is the worst time Nonetheless, I keep handwarmers in my pockets (I buy them in bulk at Sportsman's Wearhouse) and stick my hand into my pocket whenever possible. My fingers still go numb from time to time, but it helps a little. I always wear mittens driving when its cold because my fingers go numb when I touch the steering wheel. My suggestion when biking is to wear mittens with handwarmers over the tops of the fingers. Keep hot water or a hot drink in your pack in one of the vaccuum sealed canisters. Warm them up with that if they get too cold. It's a pain to deal with, but it seems once I get them warm, it doesn't happen again for a while. Good luck!

Woah! Sounds like your case of Reynaud's is MUCH worse than anything I've got - that does sound like quite a pain to deal with. Kudos for keeping at it - I was thinking about just giving up ice climbing...

I've toyed with the heat packs, but what I'd really like to do is longer trips into more remote places, and I don't think I can carry enough heat packs to make it work for that length of time. I might have to change my goals, I know, but I thought before doing that it was worth trying a few things.

So, sounds like for now I need to find a deal on handwarmers...

well then I apologize as well, it just irks me that so many people laugh in my face about what I do. herbal medicine is REAL medicine, it's what people have used since the dawn of time until this century and is far more effective at actually CURING disease than any modern techniques, people are not healthier now than they were in the past, in fact they are far more sickly and weak than at any time in human history, modern trauma care is indispensable, no argument there, but how many chronic diseases has modern medicine actually CURED? I ask you that.

Evan Simons wrote:well then I apologize as well, it just irks me that so many people laugh in my face about what I do. herbal medicine is REAL medicine, it's what people have used since the dawn of time until this century and is far more effective at actually CURING disease than any modern techniques, people are not healthier now than they were in the past, in fact they are far more sickly and weak than at any time in human history, modern trauma care is indispensable, no argument there, but how many chronic diseases has modern medicine actually CURED? I ask you that.

I agree. Alternative medicinals are very helpful. I had high cholesterol and Lipitor gave me extreme muscle wastage (my forearms lost 3/4 of their strength and took 8 months to recover and I had extreme joint pain from the crap)so I couldn't use statins at all. All I take is Flaxseed Oil, and my level went from 232 down to 166, well within normal levels. So, I'm with you, try the alternatives first. Western medicine treats symptoms usually, and not the underlying problem. Asians aren't stupid and we should be more accepting of alternative techniques.

Evan Simons wrote:well then I apologize as well, it just irks me that so many people laugh in my face about what I do. herbal medicine is REAL medicine, it's what people have used since the dawn of time until this century and is far more effective at actually CURING disease than any modern techniques, people are not healthier now than they were in the past, in fact they are far more sickly and weak than at any time in human history, modern trauma care is indispensable, no argument there, but how many chronic diseases has modern medicine actually CURED? I ask you that.

Evan,

What would you recommend for joint pain, mostly in my fingers, elbows and shoulders? I generally have pain in the morning that eases as the day progresses. I've tried the usual anti-inflammatory stuff, It helps a little but I don't really like taking it all the time. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

you could try turmeric, it actually has fairly similar action to advil without many of the side effects, yucca is good for rheumatic stiffness. peony, meadowsweet, pulstatilla, jamaican dogwood, california poppy, all have either anti-inflammatory or analgesic (pain killing) properties. also try burdock root, it is a fantastic alterative, that is it squeezes out your extracellular space where dead cells, bacteria, loose proteins and other thing accumulate that cause swelling and stiffness in joints. my father has bad arthritic pain in his fingers and shoulders from climbing hard at 53 and burdock really helps him. a combination of a few of these things would be good, say meadowsweet, burdock and pultastilla, or any combo you feel attracted to. they should all be available and a decent herb/vitamin store.

Take a jack off break at the belay. From what I learned in high school physics, friction causes heat. Its worked for me on several occasions.

Matt Toensing wrote:Take a jack off break at the belay. From what I learned in high school physics, friction causes heat. Its worked for me on several occasions.

Way to bring it back to the matter at hand... so to speak...

I'm curious about a few of the vasodilators that have been mentioned. I've heard the cinnamon and chile powder both work. I'm a little wary, though - a friend once recommended a mixture of spices that tasted worse than vile. Kept me warm, though - because I was sweating profusely from the chile powder...

Coz Teplitz wrote:Way to bring it back to the matter at hand... so to speak... a friend once recommended a mixture of spices that tasted worse than vile.

lol, if left w/that a shot o'scotch will do u better

Dude - My hands get cold really easy as well. I've never actually attributed it to any syndrome (mostly because I've never researched on it), but I've always assumed I just had poor circulation in my hands. When others are whining about numb feet, I'm fine in the toes, but gone in the hands. Whether skiing, ice climbing, or cicyling on cold days, I'm always the first in the bunch to lose their hands. I've tried chemical handwarmers, heavy gloves, etc. but those things only seem to prolong the inevitable - my hands are going to go numb at some point if it's cold enough. And it's not the numbing that is the worst part, it's the 5 minutes of complete torture that occur once they start to get circulation back and start warming again. That pain can be crippling. If anyone ever wanted sensitive information from me, just freeze my hands, let them warm up again, and I'll tell you whatever you want. I've also found that the longer I push off the numbing, the worst it hurts on the recovery. One more thing I've discovered when ice climbing is that it only happens once on any given day. Apparently, once I go through the torture cycle for a few minutes and regain control of my fingers, I'm good for the rest of the day. Weird. All that said, my strategy is to not fight it, let the hands go through their cycle early on, and then I'm golden for the remainder of the time that I'm out in the cold. Can't explain it, but it works for me. I guess the vessels or capillaries need to get opened up or something.

Cody, you are the second person in this thread to suggest that going through the rewarming cycle fixes the problem. It sounds like you have a classic case of Reynaud's. Did you ever get frostbite in your fingers?

It is a panic reaction of you blood vessels to constrict ( vasoconstriction ) usually brought on by a past traumatic extreme cold condition in your fingers. What is probably going on here is you are triggering the Reynaud's reaction and then, after rewarming, the tissue in the vessels is too fatigued to constrict again.

Try the herbs...they can work miracles. However, whatever herb you decide to use, research to find out if it causes liver stress if used for long periods of time. (tumeric is one that does) In any case, it is a good practice to take an herb for a course and then go off of it for a period of time (week or two). One herb not mentioned that if it wouldn't work for your condition has many other benefits: Korean Ginseng.

Also, try eating raw garlic for 2-3 days before an outing. Garlic thins the blood and dilates capillaries. Use fish oil every day-Nordic Naturals or Clarks brands are good brands that use mercury free fish. Get the bottle of oil instead of capsules for a better value.

If you are going to use cinnamon, use only Ceylon cinnamon since other types cause liver damage if taken in large quantities for a long period of time.

Poor circulation could also be caused by a diet low in raw food enzymes. Lentils can be sprouted in about 5 days and are a great raw food staple. Eat raw nuts, germinated sunflower seeds, raw corn on the cob, raw sweet potatoes, avocados, freshly made vegetable juices, etc. There are a lot of raw food preparation books out there.

Get a biofeedback device that measures the temp in your fingers and gives you an audible signal as the temp increases. You do this in a meditative state, but once you learn to control your blood flow to your hands, you can do it while outdoors.

Kevin Friesen wrote:If you are going to use cinnamon, use only Ceylon cinnamon since other types cause liver damage if taken in large quantities for a long period of time.

Kevin thanks for the heads-up on the sin-o'men. Wonder what kind I've been using from the coffee shops counters *gasp* ):

fyi wiki has some pictures & more descriptions. I second the Ginseng option, shot-viles sometimes available at check-out counters

Rick,
I think you're right. I actually read up on Reynaud's after making my previous post, and realized that fit my symptons quite closely. I've never had frostbite, or any sever cold weather injury that I can remember, other than painful cycle I described. I've had that since I was a kid, and just grew up assuming everyone's hands reacted that way to cold. Now I have a firm medical excuse to use when I'm having a bad day on the ice. Sweetness.

Cody, I am not in any way a professional, just someone who happens to know a little about this subject. In your situation, I would talk to a doctor a second doctor if you feel the need. Bite the bullet and fork over the co-pay, it will be worth it. Since you like cold weather activity, make sure things are in order.