Of course it's less noticeable in the hot days, but in general when I go out for long walks my fingers will feel bloated and red-ish. The doctor told me that it's called Raynaud's phenomenon and that I'll have to figure out ways to deal with it.
So far I tried some gloves that I had in my house but even with those my fingers get cold while they are inside the gloves.
Absurdly enough, the room temperature doesn't have much to do with it, because the air condition is working at full throttle and my room is close to 80-82 Fahrenheit most of the time.
Also, if you have it, did you ever had to report it to your manager? Did you tried anything that worked for your workplace?
One awesome thing my work did for me was brought in a hand massage specialist who taught me several stretching techniques for the hand that help increase blood flow which in turn helps keep them much warmer.
Check out the the following page [1], it has pictures and descriptions that teach great stretches. Not only is it good for circulation it's good to just do this in general to prevent other common problems that stem from lack of stretching.
side note stretching has been a real game changer for my programming. Not only does it make me feel more energized, the stretching seems to have increased my work ethics by a lot because I feel more energized to be that team player.
[1] http://www.toc.md/exercises_wristhand.htm
If this doesn't help just grab a desk USB hand warmer and that should be able to help when your hands aren't feeling so nice (as mentioned by other users in this).
edit Also wanted to mention after thinking a bit more and the hands, feet, and head are the places you lose the most amount of body heat from. I wear a hat while programming so possibly having one at your desk may also help keep in more heat? Just a thought, doubtful this is the root of the issue for ya though.
Obviously I am not a doctor.
Reading through that suggests either you are a normal case and just need to take your fitness seriously (including keeping stress under control) to improve circulation. You could be an abnormal case and need to look at medication - but as you have already seen a doctor I am going to guess that isn't the case.
For fitness I wholeheartedly recommend https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend... (vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB3HhP2GYk0&feature=youtu.be ).
The heater suggestions seem like good ideas to treat the symptoms while you work on the cause.
Reporting it to your manager is an interesting question. Personally I wouldn't do anything formal, but I work quite closely with my manager so he would informally know, I also don't have to get permission to use any personal equipment at work - which isn't the case for everyone.
But again, I am not a doctor.
It sounds like a PITA of a condition. I hope it is benign and treatable for you.
Of course, this only works if blood can circulate heat from your core to your extremities. Try throwing on a vest and, when coding, make sure your elbows are not bent and your writs are not resting on a pad in such a way as to obstruct blood flow.
Good luck!
From what I've read, when the core gets colder, the body withdraws blood from the extremities.
Look for images/videos of professional pianists -- ideal wrist ergonomics for typing are very similar to those for playing piano.
Specifically, your wrists should be loose and relaxed, so that your hands would hang down loosely if the fingers weren't resting on anything. My piano teacher used to spend a few minutes at the beginning of each lesson shaking my forearms until the wrists loosened enough!
But this was before USB, you know, when you had to go uphill in the snow both to and from school. Nowadays you can get something like:
https://www.amazon.com/USB-Heated-Shawl-Lap-Blanket/dp/B01BH...
And of course, you should be careful in your choice of computing hardware and software. Nowadays, hardware and software are optimised to spare energy usage, processors go to sleep or reduce frequency while you're working, etc. All this doesn't produce much heat, in top-notch computing hardware. Instead, choose cheaper, less "green" hardware, some laptop that heats a lot, and run some background tasks (eg. you may compile the linux kernel in a loop, or have some 3D rendering game running in background), so that the processor is used close to 100% full frequency, and produce more heath. Then you can put your fingers on the hot surfaces or on the air vent exits.
Or, if you'd rather get something out of it for yourself, you could mine cryptocurrency.
In your circumstance, I'd look into USB-powered heated gloves as an option as well, e.g. [1]. If that alone isn't sufficient, some have removable heating elements that you could probably transfer over to the heavier fingerless gloves mentioned above.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/DPG230L-Technicians-Fingerless-Synthe...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/GoodBZ-Fingerless-Mittens-Computer-St...
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/raynauds-disea...
Check the lifestyle and home remedy part for some advice, but it sounds like you just need to plan more breaks and relax your extremities more.
So I'd continue to be checked. There is likely a more specific underlying cause that can be treated. Cold is a factor but it seems based on the condition that you could be coding in a volcano and still have this happen
Edit cause I bumped submit on tablet too soon.
A good short term solution is to fill a paper cup with hot water and wrap your hands around that. This provides temporary relief but only treats the symptom. The effect wears off quickly.
I have also tried fingerless gloves, but those are completely worthless.
The only real solution is to do some light exercise. Most days after I eat lunch, I will walk around for 30 minutes. This light exercise creates heat in my muscles and thereby heats up my blood. The warm blood can also freely circulate to my hands and feet as nothing is constraining the flow of blood. After about 15 minutes of walking I can feel an internal warmth returning to my hands. The skin is still cold but I know soon enough my hands will be warm again. And the effect lasts the rest of the day.
If this is what's happening, perhaps taking up indoor rock climbing would help. I know of no better exercise for improving the body's ability to send blood to the forearms and hands than rock climbing since so much of it depends on grip strength. Failing that, there are grip strength training devices (example...not suggesting this particular one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HB7V6KS) that he might keep by his desk to use when he starts getting cold fingers.
+1 for that. Where I work there's a central cooling system at it gets very cold around where I sit. So I periodically grab some hot tea and hold the cup to help heat my hands.
I too do some walking to help increase body temperature and blood flow. It alleviates the symptoms somewhat.
When I work remotely from home, I use a stand up desk setup. I've found that I don't get the cold feeling when I do this.
I have the small rooms one described here. And it is pretty manageable. http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-space-heaters/
The US Army has done some research suggesting you can train away the response by (IIRC) keeping your hands in warm water while cooling your body:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/19/science/simple-method-foun...
I've tried this with good results but it may not work as well if you have the issue in warm temperatures.
There are also heated keyboards and mice you could try.
Lots of unhelpful advice in other posts: gloves don't work, because heat is brought to your hands by blood flow. Blood flow is cut off, which is why they are cold in the first place. Exercise doesn't really help, because it elevates your core temperature which your body dissipates by circulating to your limbs... which isn't happening. People won't understand what it's like to be painfully cold in a perfectly normal room.
For immediate fixes: if your skin goes dead white and you lose feeling, immediately do something to warm it up.
http://fupjack.tumblr.com/post/108687833029/note-to-self-get...
Finding a bathroom and running warm water over my hands often fixes it, and certainly feels better - though it can be painful as the numbness wears off. You need an external heat source because your body can't do it on its own.
If your flesh goes blueish-purple, warm it IMMEDIATELY. Extended periods without blood will kill cells and you'll get the equivalent of frostbite and gangrene.
In the long term: It's a spasmodic overreaction to cold, so avoid cold sources. i.e. it can be triggered by air conditioning blowing on you, holding food from the freezer, and so on. I wear a hat into our server room at work for just this reason.
Stress level is related, so exercise may help ... indirectly. I've lost 40 pounds over the past year and a half and walk several miles a day. It has been good for my physical condition and stress, but it doesn't seem to have helped Reynaud's.
It can help to have significantly warm clothing to keep it from triggering; I wear Minus33 undershirts and they help. My wife found a woman who had Reynaud Syndrome who makes her own wool mittens to help, and bought me a pair. (I feel like I have giant fuzzy flippers, but they work.)
I have not tried medication for it; can't tell you if it's worth it.
On the plus side, if you don't like feeling too warm... it may never happen to you again. I felt overheated exactly once this past summer, and my house did not have air conditioning.
I'm sure if you talk to your manager and explain that you have a legitimate medical concern that they will help reach a solution.
She found the rechargeable electric gloves from Columbia to be very useful. Many outdoor equipment/apparel companies are manufacturing similar items now. Perhaps a fingerless pair of gloves would help?
edit: perhaps, something like this:www.heatedmouse.com/Heated-Gloves.html
It sounds like room temperature doesn't impact you you, Filthy_casual, much, so I'm not sure how much this will help you. I am posting mainly for others that may be curious.
I've built these tents out of a number of things, but most commonly it's a t-shirt with 2 coffee mugs on either side to prop it a little. Janky? yes. Effective for me? yes.
I dislike typing with gloves, as my accuracy drops quite a bit. Fingerless gloves don't keep my hands warm. I dislike heating the air in a large room to heat my hands, and I have annoying preference for symmetry on my body that is hard to achieve without two heaters.
Err, maybe I'm missing something, but how about investing in a BETTER pair of gloves?
Doing something with your fingers while walking (keeping them occupied, e.g. with small stretching, etc) will help the blood flow better.
Also, maybe don't go out for "long walks" when it's too cold outside?
Anyways, my fix is to get the heart rate up. I jump on the treadmill at an incline and do some push-ups. 10 minutes is all I need. And no, I'm not a fitness freak.
The founder's strategy was to hang french fry heating lamps from the ceiling, just a little over our hands. It worked great!
I wear a hat.
I wear enough clothes to keep my core warm.
When I get up to use the bathroom I also go sit in front of the wood stove for a few minutes and warm my hands up.
Anyway, I'd personally try niacin (also known as vitamin B3), which is also used in heat-rub creams.
I either go outside or go to the bathroom and wash my hands in hot water every hour or two for a reset.
Probably not as good as fingertip-less gloves but close enough for me.
A number of people doing that in this thread, by the way, not just you. Raynaud's can be quite aggressive, painful, and limiting to the sufferer's quality of life, including the onset of gangrene and the threat of digit loss in particularly extreme cases. I also see people condescendingly do this to those afflicted in my family -- your fingers get cold? That's easy to fix. Come run with me!
Not how Raynaud's works. Exercise? Good suggestion. Will cure the problem in a week? Google Raynaud's.
All joking aside, I have the opposite problem. I'm always hot.
i live in the tropics, used to have cold fingers, now i don't have cold fingers.
seems like an honest solution to me?
Airconditioning, open windows, or bad isolation can cause an un undesired airflow.
> The doctor told me that it's called Raynaud's phenomenon and that I'll have to figure out ways to deal with it.
Wait, your doctor did not tell you how to deal with this? You're not paying anyone here for medical advice.
For people who work behind a desk for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week I recommend the following:
First of all, regular physical exercise. Its obvious but it has to be stated, and its even more so important if you don't do physical labour.
Second, for office work the following advice (in no particular order: based on own experience, pomodoro techninque, plus local laws concerning this type of work): put an alarm on your smartphone or watch or equivalent device, set it to one hour. Every time the alarm goes off, you take a walk and do some stretches, total of min 3 up to 5 min (more will cause drama with coworkers and/or boss). If someone complains, you tell them that smokers get to smoke in the bosses time (thereby having a walk, good for their blood circulation; smoking itself obviously isn't good for blood circulation and if you do quit ASAP; consult your M.D. for aid) and you need a small walk to keep your blood circulation going. (Of course, you could also try to plan meetings or grabbing a coffee together with your walk & stretch, tho I don't recommend 6+ coffee during 8 hours of work.) During this downtime, you can think of whatever comes up in your mind. It is actually rather likely that more often than not you get inspiration during your downtime, but that is a useful byproduct not the main goal (this is called the diffused mode of thinking). Oh, and if someone laughs at you, know that when you're both elder you're the one who's laughing because you cared about your physical health throughout your working career. I mentioned this is partly based on pomodoro technique. Its a variation on it. If you're self employed, I actually recommend the pomodoro technique itself (ie. traditional pomodoro is 25 minutes of focus, with a 5 min break, and after 2 hours, a longer break (there are variations, worth looking into this further)). But if you're working for a boss or in a team then a small break after 25 minutes of focus is frowned upon. I believe its a productivity loss, but this is the way the status quo of work force generally thinks, sadly. There's some excellent pomodoro apps available for macOS, Android, iOS and surely also for other OSes and platforms. Like I said, alarm apps also work.
