Cold air can have an impact on our bodies. One you might not be familiar with is Raynaud’s phenomenon, which occurs when there’s a decreased blood flow to the fingers and other extremities, causing them to change color. Avera rheumatologist, Mark Vercel, MD explains more on this condition.
What is Raynaud’s phenomenon?
Raynaud’s phenomenon is an abnormality we will sometimes see in clinic where somebody’s blood vessels will spasm a little bit too much in response to cold. In a normal response to stimulus, our blood vessels will open and close, they’ll contract to help preserve body warmth essentially. Our normal response when we go out into the cold is to have our fingers and toes turn cold probably before our core does and that’s a normal response. But Raynaud’s phenomenon is an observable incidence where people will have the blood vessels that go up the sides of their fingers and toes clamp down too much and so what happens is they end up getting color changes, white, purple blue, and when they open back up, they get really flushed and warm.
What causes this condition?
In most cases it’s a primary and benign condition. The vast majority of people that have this phenomenon don’t have any underlying cause or condition, that’s why we don’t refer to it as a disease per se, but it’s more so a reaction to cold exposure. In some cases it can be secondary. There are some known causes for Raynaud’s phenomenon, anything from repetitive trauma to the blood vessels in the hands to neuropathy related changes that can cause these triggers.
What can people do for treatment?
Most of the coaching that we do for Raynaud’s phenomenon is reassurance and mostly just conservative measures, there’s not necessarily medicine needed for the majority of people. It comes down to keeping your core warm in response to cold stimulus. We have some people that will come in from a 90 degree day outside and go into the grocery store and grab a gallon of milk and it will trigger it, so it’s really about the temperature change, between the warm and the cold that will trigger it.
How common is Raynaud’s phenomenon?
It’s quite common, maybe even one in five people, and predominately in women. If we see it in men we start to think about more secondary causes, but in most patients it’s a benign condition we see pretty regularly.
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