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can we can the coat queries, s'il vous plait?
08/24/2007 12:43:10 / disapointed
Yes, I admit it. I like to wear coats in 90-degree weather. I prefer parkas, but a good stout overcoat might do, too. Of course, I prefer wearing them *inside*, where the air conditioning has lowered the temperature to flash-freeze status.
But there's one condition to wearing said coats: my condition.
Until a recent trip with my mother, a nursing instructor who lives in St. Augustine, Fla., I didn't realize I even had a condition; I thought my hands and feet turned to tundra in the air conditioning because I come from heat-loving, Mediterranean-dwelling people.
That was until my mom grabbed up my frigid hand, gave its pallor the once-over, and declared that I have "Raynaud's Syndrome."
I had barely begun making out my will out on a paper napkin when she stopped me.
Turns out, it's not a big deal. It just means that the little blood vessels in my fingers and toes constrict, reducing the amount of blood to my extremities. That causes that -brrrrr- feeling I constantly have in air conditioning.
It turns out, it's not that uncommon.
The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (which splashily dubs it Raynaud's "phenomenon") says that the ailment affects 3 percent of the population, mostly women.
Most, like me, have the milder form. Our fingers and toes get frigid and might go numb but we are otherwise not put out.
We are the people others think of as "cold-blooded" rather than "prone to losing digits."
The therapy, says NIAMS and the American Heart Association, is simple: Warm up.
And if you have to, wear a coat! Or mittens! Or a hat! Or all of them!
It doesn't mention this on the big, national health Web sites, but I am willing to guess that most people with the syndrome have a.) already figured this out and b.)like me, get lots of wise-acre remarks about our coat-wearing propensities.
So, to all of you Heckle and Jeckles who like teasing this Nanuk of the North: Have I answered your question yet?
So there. If you see me wearing a coat when it's blazing hot outside, you know why. So quit asking, already.
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