Sunday, April 22, 2007

My hands get cold...

I have explained that my hands can get cold during a run. It doesn't happen immediately. It tends to happen after I have been exercising for a while. Most of the time it happens during times of cold weather.

I have been prescribed a medication for my hypertensive condition. I have talked to my Doctor about it. He has told me that there are a few contributing factors. First of all, the medicine may be a contributing factor. Secondly, as we run, the body may decrease blood flow to the extremities to increase warmth in the inner core. This will happen especially during cold or inclement weather (I do keep the basement of my house cooler than the true living area - Saves on heating it).

It can be your body telling you to warm up. Check the clothing that you are wearing and make sure that you are warm enough but layered enough to cool down when you need to. A simple form of hypothermia can cause cold hands.

I have a good pulse. You can check your capillary refill by applying pressure to a fingernail; it should turn white with pressure and rapidly (less than 3 seconds) return to normal color when pressure is released. My fingernails pass this test.

The Doctor asked if I could tolerate it. I told him that I could. He said to try wearing some light gloves. A favorite area store has light cotton gardening gloves that are not real expensive. I buy them and use them. They are comfortable and slip on and off easily. They can be machine washed and dried. I don't wear them all the time but I do when the hands get cold.

Is it impossible to deal with? No. Just inconvenient.

1 Comments:

Blogger Susan said...

Well shoot! I just left a very witty, insighltful comment and my computer died. In a nutshell: good for you for finding an easy, economical solution to your "liveable problem," as I call those of that nature. Go Charlie go!

2:08 PM  

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