The funny thing with that is I only needed to do it with my middle finger. Can you imagine what that looked like with my other fingers clenched to a fist for warmth and the middle finger inside the glove? Nope? Well the empty gloved finger was rather too stiff for polite company!! To any walker going the other way, if I waved to you I wasn't flipping the bird or whatever other name you give for that obscene gesture.
Another reaons why my new mitt was a good purchase.
I found the Dachstein woollen mitts strangely attractive... sometimes traditional can be better than modern?
"My recommendation is Extremities Inferno mitts. £30 of toasty warmth"
I had been looking at their Super Inferno as it has twice the Primaloft
"Superbly warm thanks to a whopping 10oz Primaloft filling (twice the insulation of our standard Inferno products), The Super Inferno Glove is designed especially for those who suffer "cold hands"
10oz is around 280g?
I looked at the Berghaus Icefall recommend earlier in the thread. They have 60g Primaloft.
I wonder now if Super Inferno will be too warm? Perhaps it worth getting the gloves rather than the mitts.... hmmm
Thanks for all your suggestions I do appreciate it. I suppose I may end up adding more than one pair to my 'handwear collection' after negotiations with my financial controller
the extremities ice gauntlets mentioned earlier (actually the shiny new, kevlar ones!) are currently £50 at field & trek, all sizes!! just about to get myself a pair.
i also suffer from reynauds. i find the best thing is just to run around a lot. until your practically overheating. this usually gets the blood flowing properly. the hard part is getting that hot without getting too sweaty and your sweat freezing and making your hands cold.
also the doctor told me to avoid caffeine and nicotine. i know scientifically this should make a difference, but ive tried not smoking or drinking coffee and found it makes very little difference to me. except i dont feel warmed from the coffee and want a fag! on the plus side alcohol helps your circulation, so get drinking!
> So much so that I was sitting at work on my PC and my mouse hand got incredably numb, sore and tingly in fact it went all the way up my forearm.
TTG, when you say your hand and forearm went numb, do you mean that they went waxy white, or just that you lost sensation? The former is the sort of thing that happens with Raynauds, and the latter is, I'd suggest, due to compression of the nerve outlets of the spine, probably due to poor posture at the PC. A quick look at a dermatome chart suggests C6-C8. My face went numb (V2, V3) for the same reason, until I got my posture looked at and corrected.
> I watched a Bear Grylis programme, some time ago. He gave a demonstration as to the 'best' thing to do once your hands start going. [...] The thing to do is stand there and thrust your arms back and forth, up and down; to get the systems in them working.
For once, Bear talking some sense... I can sometimes be found whirling my arms around like a Dervish, trying to force warm blood to my fingers through the constricted circulation...
Rubbing waxy fingers may well cause similar damage to frostbite.
And yes, I've found that a small amount of alcohol seems to help.
I reckon it was a white hand (completely lost its fleshy colour) and it went numb. It wasn't loss of sensation as such because I had pins and needles sort of but it felt like my hand wasn't quite mine. I got a bit of the effect this week while driving home after getting dropped off where my car was parked after car sharing back from a walk. I also get an effect on my forearms ocasionally.
The only reason I doubt it is Raynauds is that the info I've seen say that most develop it before 30s or early 30s at latest. Inb cases where ppl get it in 30s itis likely to be due to some underlying cause that can often be found. Those that get it before 30s only something like 1 in 10 or 5 (not sure which) have a cause that can be found and treated. After 30 it is a greater proportion. The info the doc gave me seemed to say that since I got it late 30s I probably have a reason behind it starting that can be found and sorted.
I am supsicious that it started this winter and nto before.
reynauds can come and go, sometimes i can go out in the snow with no problems and other times start shivering on a relatively warm summer night. it does sound a little strange you had never gotten it until recently though, ive had cold hands/feet as long as i can remember, but only diagnosed as reynauds when i was 16. im now 21 and although some years its worse than others its never properly gone away/come back.
the doctor told me its often genetic (thanks for mine gran!) so you could see if anyone else in your family has it (they may not have it diagnosed but would probably know if you told them the symptoms)
tbh though the only help KNOWING its reynauds is that i have an excuse not to do things i dont want to in the cold, and ive come to expect it and can dress/get my circulation going accordingly. oh and i suppose i know its nothing more serious. so maybe it is worth getting someone else to check you out...
Dr. Murray Hamlet at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Massachusetts, found a way to trigger this adaptation and enhance it. He devised an exercise for troops in Alaska: Place your hands in a container of water heated to 104[degrees] to 107[degrees]F (hot water from the tap) for two to five minutes while you're sitting in a comfortable room. Then go to a cold area, preferably outdoors, and place your hands in 104[degrees] to 107[degrees] water for ten minutes. Then repeat the two to five minute indoor hot soak again. While the cold environment normally makes your peripheral blood vessels constrict, the sensation of the warm water makes them open. When you repeatedly get the blood vessels to open despite the cold, you are effectively "training" your hands to counter the constriction reflex. After 50 treatments, Dr. Hamlet says, most people can go into the cold without losing circulation in their hands.
When on the Hill try not to have your rucksack straps too tight for too long as this can aslo hinder circulation at the shoulder and make the hands feel tingly/numb.
Loosen of straps slightly from time to time and raise arms above the head repeating a few time can do a lot for circulation out on the hill.
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