Raynaud’s Disease in Runners
Do you have cold hands? I have cold hands. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have anything wrong with you. However, there is a disease or syndrome that you should be aware of called Raynaud’s.
I have friends who are runners who have this syndrome. What happens when you have Raynaud’s? It is usually triggered by cold weather but can also be triggered by other environmental stresses like diet, sleep, stress or some combination of those. It is more common in cold weather climates.
Whatever the triggering stress, Raynaud’s causes the blood vessels in extremities like fingers and toes to spasm and restrict blood flow to the small capillaries. They use the wonderful medical terminology of ‘vasospasm’ to describe it. When this happens your fingers or toes will turn white, almost waxy, turn cold and maybe even numb. If you don’t warm them up they may even turn blue.
To understand the severity of what happens go look at some of the photographs online of effected hands during episodes. It’ quite clearly delineated where the blood vessels are shutting down. I’ve include a picture courtesy of Wikipedia in this article, but just search google images to get an idea of what this looks like – it’s eye-opening.
Once the attack starts you need to get the effected fingers or toes warmed up. After 15 minutes or so of warming the blood vessels will relax and blood flow will return to the extremities. The pinker color will return to the fingers. They may tingle or ache a bit as they warm up.
Talking to my friend who has Raynaud’s, he said the temperature really doesn’t have to be that cold to trigger an attack. He said that the best defense against Raynaud’s is a good thick pair of winter gloves and maybe some hand warmers when it’s really cold. He said once they start spasming all you can do is get somewhere warm and wait it out.
I wanted to talk about Raynaud’s disease with you today because I think people misunderstand what it is. I hear people talking about having cold hands and tossing around Raynaud’s symptom like it’s synonymous with having cold hands. It’s not. Raynaud’s is a specific condition whereby the blood vessels spasm and cut off normal blood flow to the fingers (or toes).
As endurance athletes we may have low heartrates and low fat content in our bodies. This will contribute to your hands and feet being colder than other, ‘normal’ people’s. But that is not Raynaud’s. That’s just an attribute of the way you’ve configured your body through endurance training.
I know my hands can be cold for an entire winter run of multiple hours. When I get back they’re still cold and sometimes they get achy from the cold. But they don’t turn white and waxy. They’re still getting blood, it’s just not warm enough to bring them up to body temperature. I can fix this simply by wearing thicker gloves.
Raynaud’s can also be late onset. Meaning that you can not have any episodes until later in your life. That’s typically more in the case of people who have let their cardio systems degrade later in life. The degraded cardio systems (from lack of exercise or smoking) can trigger late onset Raynaud’s. That’s typically not a scenario you and I have to worry about.
It seems that women are more likely to have Raynaud’s than men. Raynaud’s is also more common in cold weather geographies.
Interestingly the medical treatment for a bad case of Raynauds is vasodilator drugs. Anyone know a good example of a vasodilator drug? Well if you’re my age and watch sports on TV you have probably seen plenty of ads for them. That’s right, Viagra and all its pals are vasodilators. I guess now that you’ve got those hands warmed up you can take it to the next level!
Raynaud’s can be triggered by certain medications and other physical conditions. In the worst, severe cases of Raynaud’s you can permanently lose blood flow to the affected areas. This gives you all the ickiness of necrotic tissue and ulcers and the like. But, I’m sure now that you know the facts you won’t let it get that far!
In summary, cold hands are common among endurance athletes. Raynaud’s syndrome is a specific medical condition where the blood vessels spasm and cut off bold flow to your extremities. If your fingers or toes are turning white, waxy and numb you may be having a Raynaud’s episode.
There is no cure, per se, but it can easily be prevented by wearing warmer gloves when you’re out and about.
Now you know. Stay healthy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynaud_syndrome