Cold Hands and Feet: Raynaud’s Symptoms

One of the most common effects of Raynaud’s Disease, a condition which causes blood vessels in your extremities to reduce blood flow, is that your hands and feet feel colder than normal. This is caused by reduced blood flow to the areas and can be quite painful.

Raynaud’s Triggers

A Raynaud’s attack is most commonly triggered by cold. This can be anything from being in a cold environment to touching a cold object. Because of this, it’s only natural that your hands will be cold when a Raynaud’s attack happens.

Raynaud’s Attacks

A cold feeling in hands and feet can be the first sign of an attack of Raynaud’s. This is where the affected blood vessels spasm and cut off blood supply to your fingers and toes. Because of this, they change colour. Firstly, they turn white and the affected skin can take on a waxy, lifeless appearance. At this point fingers and toes tend to feel cold to the touch and numb.

After that, the loss of oxygen supply causes them to turn blue. Once the blood returns to the fingers and toes, the skin turns red. It’s not uncommon at this point for it to be painful and have a burning sensation. After this the skin goes back to its normal colour.

Cold Hands and Feet and Raynaud’s

Cold feeling hands and feet because of Raynaud’s is not exclusive to an attack. Even during day-to-day life Raynaud’s can cause hands and feet to be colder than normal. 

In most cases, even an attack is not painful and does not necessarily cause the entire colour change sequence mentioned above, instead simply causing fingers to appear pale, cold and uncomfortable.

Keeping Your Hands and Feet Warm

The best way to prevent this key symptom of Raynaud’s disease is to keep your hands and feet warm, both when at or home or when outside, and the easiest and most obvious way to do this is to wear gloves and thick socks. To protect against Raynaud’s, your best bet is to wear silver gloves and silver socks. These contain silver thread which helps reflect your skin’s heat much better than most other materials, keeping your extremities warmer for longer. 

This helps make your life much more comfortable and easier, allowing you to be more active and mobile, even in the winter months.

If you’re interested in getting your hands on some gloves and socks to help protect against the symptoms of Raynaud’s disease, head on over to RaynaudsDisease.com and check out our ranges of Socks and Gloves.