The Lemon Fool

Just changed a front wheel of my car following a puncture. Hands ended up freezing cold.

Does anyone know why we suffer such agony when very cold hands warm up? For example if one warms them up too quickly, which is the initial temptation.

It seems to me there is a finite amount of pain you're going to get in any given situation, that you get it all at once if you stick your hands in warm water, and you get less of it but spread over longer if you just leave them in room-temperature air.

And, does anyone know whether there is a good trick to minimise this unpleasant effect*?

Thanks,
Chris
* Other than not getting them cold in the first place.

csearle wrote:Just changed a front wheel of my car following a puncture. Hands ended up freezing cold.

Does anyone know why we suffer such agony when very cold hands warm up? For example if one warms them up too quickly, which is the initial temptation.

It seems to me there is a finite amount of pain you're going to get in any given situation, that you get it all at once if you stick your hands in warm water, and you get less of it but spread over longer if you just leave them in room-temperature air.

And, does anyone know whether there is a good trick to minimise this unpleasant effect*?

Thanks,
Chris
* Other than not getting them cold in the first place.

It's a rate of change thing
- creatures don't experience "absolute" temp
- our temperature nerves are set up to measure differences

We know that intuitively because you can "boil a frog" and because most ladies I've known think the heating is broken because the radiator isn't "hot"
- but you can also do the experiment with three buckets: cold, room and warm water.... It's disconcerting if you don't know how we work!

So when things change too quickly it's a danger sign (or used to be) and it's painful... unless you can cognitively explain it (which is actually quite hard if you try the three buckets experiment! )
-sd

Note that the opposite is not the case. When you come out of a hot bath, you can be comfy in freezing air - for a while. When you come out of a sauna, you go for a dip through the hole in the ice.

When you get seriously cold, the body's defences kick in. The comfort of the outside can be sacrificed (to numbness rather than actual discomfort) so long as your healthy layer of fat protects the vital organs inside. Think marine mammals in polar waters: permanently cold outsides, big thick layers of blubber. Readjusting to the warmth has to happen gradually: you don't get straight into a hot bath when you come in from the cold!

That's generality. Getting cold hands doing a particular job is a slightly unnatural variant of the same. There might be some other factors in play, but I suspect the underlying issue is the same: your body has triggered "cold outer layer" mode. If it weren't capable of doing that, you - or maybe in this instance your hands - wouldn't survive the cold.

Incidentally I suffer a bit from Raynauds (self-diagnosed but, frankly, obvious), which may possibly make matters worse with me.

Chris

csearle wrote:Just changed a front wheel of my car following a puncture. Hands ended up freezing cold.

Does anyone know why we suffer such agony when very cold hands warm up? For example if one warms them up too quickly, which is the initial temptation.

It seems to me there is a finite amount of pain you're going to get in any given situation, that you get it all at once if you stick your hands in warm water, and you get less of it but spread over longer if you just leave them in room-temperature air.

And, does anyone know whether there is a good trick to minimise this unpleasant effect*?

Thanks,
Chris
* Other than not getting them cold in the first place.

The trick is to keep warm blood flowing in the arms, and to minimise heat loss in the fingers. So keep the rest of the body in head and feet well insulated; don't remain still, keep limbs moving; minimise amount of fingers exposed; minimise amount of time bare finger flesh is clamped on metal tools. Difficult when you are changing a punctured wheel, but that is what to do.

Once the (finger) veins have gone into spasm and clamped shut in Reynauds* there is in my experience not much you can do to speed up recovery / reduce recovery pain. Best things are vigorous exercise in a warm environment with active arms, and hands inside warm dry place - but NOT an overly hot one as you will not feel any pain warnings that it is too hot. So don't put them on hot pipework etc. that you would not be ordinarily able to hold firmly for an extended period.

* talking with doctors about this it seems that as with most things we all have bodies that are on a range, and that range changes as we age/etc. So to a greater or lesser extent we all experience Reynauds.

regards, dspp

csearle wrote:Just changed a front wheel of my car following a puncture. Hands ended up freezing cold.

Does anyone know why we suffer such agony when very cold hands warm up? For example if one warms them up too quickly, which is the initial temptation.

It seems to me there is a finite amount of pain you're going to get in any given situation, that you get it all at once if you stick your hands in warm water, and you get less of it but spread over longer if you just leave them in room-temperature air.

And, does anyone know whether there is a good trick to minimise this unpleasant effect*?

Thanks,
Chris
* Other than not getting them cold in the first place.

This is the natural reaction of the body that shuts down the blood vessels to the periphery when they get cold in order to preserve core body temperature (which is why we get frost bite.)

As you have noted the best way to minimise the pain when the blood returns is to warm up the hands slowly.

I'd have guessed you were used to cold hands from the motorbike Chris...but as a BMW rider you probably have heated grips.

I remember Robert Swann, the artic explorer, saying that he used to acclimatise his hands to the cold by riding his GS1200 in mid winter without gloves!

John

redsturgeon wrote:I remember Robert Swann, the artic explorer, saying that he used to acclimatise his hands to the cold by riding his GS1200 in mid winter without gloves!

John

Are you or have you ever been a motorcyclist? You're as exposed as on a bike, but much, much colder without the benefit of healthy exercise pedalling.

While you could ride without gloves on a mild winters day (like the last couple of weeks), I wouldn't care much for it. Gloves are safety-kit on a motorbike even in summer, and in winter have the added bonus of keeping the hands in a fit state to respond as rapidly as necessary to an emergency.

As for a colder snap - such as we had over the new year - I wouldn't care to try even in a fully safe environment.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I remember Robert Swann, the artic explorer, saying that he used to acclimatise his hands to the cold by riding his GS1200 in mid winter without gloves!

John

Are you or have you ever been a motorcyclist? You're as exposed as on a bike, but much, much colder without the benefit of healthy exercise pedalling.

While you could ride without gloves on a mild winters day (like the last couple of weeks), I wouldn't care much for it. Gloves are safety-kit on a motorbike even in summer, and in winter have the added bonus of keeping the hands in a fit state to respond as rapidly as necessary to an emergency.

As for a colder snap - such as we had over the new year - I wouldn't care to try even in a fully safe environment.

Yes!

John

It's many years since I had 'freezing hands syndrome' on the bike. I've never known a pain like it. I didn't have a car back then so it was all-weather riding. There was also 'freezing bum' to contend with when the bike seat, frozen like a plank, would slowly defrost after a few miles. I still ride in the winter, but only on sunny days and now have heated grips

Redmires wrote:It's many years since I had 'freezing hands syndrome' on the bike. I've never known a pain like it. I didn't have a car back then so it was all-weather riding.

I used to ride my motorbike to school, back in the late sixties. One frosty afternoon, our headmaster ordered us all out to the rugby pitch, about a mile and a half away, in order to watch an important match, and for some reason I set off without my gloves.

On my arrival at the pitch, I found my hands were frozen to the grips, which was a surprise. More concerning, though, was the discovery that all six of the 'webbed bits' where my fingers joined my hands had split to a depth of perhaps three or four millimetres and were all pouring blood. It was the frozen blood that was gluing me to the bike.

Gore, glorious gore. I didn't do that again.

BJ