What is the reason for the body to feel cold?

With the arrival of cold winter, the days begin to slowly become torturous. Going to work and coming home every day will make the body very tired. When going out, the wind outside is very strong, which can easily cause the body to catch a cold. It may even cause many people to feel cold and shake, which will affect the normal blood circulation.

With the arrival of winter, some people find life difficult. One of the reasons is that their hands or feet are particularly cold and they are afraid of the cold. Among those people with cold hands and feet, some may have problems with their blood vessels, which are early manifestations of vascular disease. If the opportunity for treatment is missed, it may cause irreversible serious consequences, so attention should be paid to this.

Under normal circumstances, there is a certain relationship between the local temperature of the human body and blood flow. The greater the blood flow, the higher the temperature; if the blood supply decreases, the temperature decreases. When a normal person is in cold conditions, peripheral blood vessels contract, causing the skin temperature to drop. As the ambient temperature rises, the temperature quickly returns to normal. For patients with vascular diseases, because their blood vessels are in a state of contraction due to cold stimulation, or because they have stenotic lesions in their arteries, the blood supply to their limbs is less, and their hands and feet become particularly cold and afraid of cold. Especially for some elderly people or patients with diabetes, if their hands and feet feel particularly cold, they should be more alert to the possibility of vascular disease.

Common ischemic diseases of the limbs include thromboangiitis obliterans (abbreviated as vasculitis), arteriosclerosis obliterans, diabetic limb ischemia, etc. The main symptoms in the early stages of these diseases are cold hands and feet of the affected limbs, always wearing cotton clothes or cotton shoes earlier than others, or feeling cold feet when sleeping at night or even not being able to warm up all night. Typical early symptoms include intermittent claudication: after walking a certain distance at a certain speed, the patient will experience soreness and pain in the calf or the entire lower limb, or feel that the lower limbs are heavy and difficult to walk, and is forced to stop moving forward. The symptoms will be alleviated or relieved after resting for a while, and the symptoms will reappear after continuing to walk for a distance. In the early stages of the disease, some patients experience no obvious discomfort when walking on flat ground, but feel soreness in the lower limbs when climbing high places (such as going up stairs).

Some patients also develop pale or cyanotic skin on one or several fingers of their hands after catching a cold, which quickly returns to normal after keeping warm. This symptom is more common in women and can also occur on the toes or other parts of the body. This is called Raynaud's phenomenon and is often an early sign of vascular disease.

Cold hands and feet accompanied by intermittent claudication are early manifestations of lower body ischemia. This process can even last for several years. If a clear diagnosis and correct treatment can be given at this stage, most patients can be spared the tremendous pain caused by limb ulceration and necrosis. Unfortunately, fewer patients seek medical treatment at this stage. Most patients are unaware that they are ill and often think it is a normal phenomenon of old age and physical weakness and do not pay attention to it, thus losing precious opportunities for treatment. As the disease progresses, there will be persistent and severe pain. In severe cases, ulceration or even black necrosis may occur. Patients often sit with their feet hugged, unable to sleep all night, crying and groaning, in unspeakable pain, and will suffer long-term painful torture.

It should also be noted that because the ischemic limbs are cold and afraid of cold, many patients use local heating. This is an incorrect and dangerous action. Many patients develop ulcers and gangrene due to local heating. Especially patients with diabetes are prone to peripheral neuritis and insensitivity, and local heating with hot water bottles may cause burns to the feet and cause serious consequences.