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| 25 new of 365 responses total. |
beeswing
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response 224 of 365:
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Nov 13 03:12 UTC 2000 |
Just wondering if it's the flu crud that is floating around.
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birdy
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response 225 of 365:
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Nov 13 03:46 UTC 2000 |
Bees - sometimes too many layers will actually keep you from warming up (I
know...sounds weird). I think you're getting that "almost winter" crud
everyone is getting now. The weather is becoming moist and cool, and the sun
is going down WAY earlier. Lots of people around me are getting tired around
seven instead of the normal ten. Silk is one of the warmest materials and
is used in a lot of ski apparel. Maybe try a layer of that under your clothes
(I know...expensive). If you're sick, though, check with a doctor. I've been
hypersensitive to cold lately, but I think it's because I'm not used to the
change yet. Pretty soon I'll be frolicking in the snow. =)
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gull
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response 226 of 365:
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Nov 13 03:49 UTC 2000 |
There is a syndrome that causes reduced circulation to the hands and feet
that they can treat. If it's really troublesome, see your doctor. Also, I
find I get cold hands if I drink too much caffeine; I think it constricts
the blood vessels or something. You might try cutting back and see if that
helps.
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birdy
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response 227 of 365:
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Nov 13 03:52 UTC 2000 |
Oh yes, and that reminded me - to conserve heat, the female body will draw
heat inward (since we're baby factories). This is why some women always have
cold feet/hands. There are many times when my body will be warm but my feet
are *freezing*. If I put socks on, they're too warm. :-P
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jiffer
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response 228 of 365:
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Nov 13 04:28 UTC 2000 |
I don't establish that I am cold till my nose is too cold to ignore.
Hmmm, if it is being too troublesome you should consult with your doctor.
This could be a tale-tale sign of something or nothing.
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beeswing
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response 229 of 365:
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Nov 13 05:14 UTC 2000 |
::runs in circles:: call 911! call 911! :)
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other
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response 230 of 365:
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Nov 13 07:36 UTC 2000 |
re #227
The only mechanism by which your body could do what you describe as pulling
heat inward is to constrict blood vessels and capillaries further from the
heart. What is most likely happening is that the blood is still thin from
the heat of the summer and the unusually mild autumn, and so we're subject
to an enhanced sense of the cold until our blood thickens up for winter. the
best thing to do would be to get plenty of outdoor exercise, increasing blood
flow and exposing yourself to the environment to facilitate adaptation.
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cmcgee
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response 231 of 365:
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Nov 13 15:26 UTC 2000 |
Actually, if your feet are cold, put on a hat.
The body keeps the head warm at the cost of the extremities. If heat is being
lost from the head, no amount of insulation of the extremities will make up
for that. Insulate your head. (Scrooge wore a nightcap to deal with just this
problem).
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rcurl
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response 232 of 365:
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Nov 13 17:27 UTC 2000 |
Blood is not "thin" in summer and "thick" in winter. We are homeotherms
and have excellent homeostatis for other blood parameters. Blood parameters
do shift slowly with changes in altitude. There are a number of pathological
responses of the body to cold and heat such as Raynaud's disease or
urticaria and hypo- or hyper- thermia, but blood doesn't "thin" or
"thicken".
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ashke
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response 233 of 365:
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Nov 13 17:51 UTC 2000 |
Exactly, rane....thickening and thinning of the blood is dangerous and not
something that regulates temperature. your body's INR is a reading of how
thick the blood is. Most normal INR's tend to be around 2.0, however 1.0 and
below is too thick and the chances of stroke and other clotting problems
occur. INR of 3.0 and higher can lead to a higher tendancy to bleed
(different from hemofelia) and also internal damage and possibly internally
bleeding to death from a hard enough bruise or bump.
you might want to see your doctor, though, if you don't want to bundle up like
an Eskimo. From those I have talked to and heard of, and my own ickiness...
It sounds like you might have a virus...it could explain the fatigue too.
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rcurl
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response 234 of 365:
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Nov 13 18:26 UTC 2000 |
My observation in #232 was to point out that blood "thickness" or
"thinness" are bad descriptors for what they are used to describe.
"Thin" and "thick", applied to fluids, are qualitative terms to describe
viscosity, or relative amounts of suspended matter in a dispersion.
However the term is now being (mis)used for *clotting* properties (even in
the professional literature). "Blood thinners" reduce clotting rate, and
"blood thickeners" increase clotting rate. However clotting factors do
not depend upon the climate.
However I do have to modify my statement in #232: blood plasma does have
a higher viscosity at lower temperatures, so the viscosity (thickness)
in the capillaries near the surface is increased if the dermis is
colder. This, of course depends upon what clothing is being worn. But
capillary circulation is reduced by lower capillary bed temperature.
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janc
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response 235 of 365:
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Nov 13 19:04 UTC 2000 |
Doctors ordinarily talk about "blood thickness" in reference not to it
viscosity but to it's tendency to clot. I don't like the terminology much
either, but it is the standard terminology used by the experts in the field.
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ashke
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response 236 of 365:
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Nov 13 19:09 UTC 2000 |
but if you figure that clotting is a thickening of the blood in the vessels
it is actually thicker than blood that does not have a super tendancy to clot
it is accurate.
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keesan
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response 237 of 365:
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Nov 13 20:06 UTC 2000 |
Re a while back about illegal phone calls (three phone calls from the same
nonprofit organization after I told them never to call me again, the second
two of these recorded announcements), the FCC informs me that while it is
illegal for a business to phone an individual after being requested not to,
for a period of ten years, and while it is illegal for a business to make
recorded phone calls to an individual, these rules do not apply to phoning
a business, or to phone calls placed by a nonprofit. In other words, World
Wildlife Federation can make prerecorded phone calls to you every day for the
rest of your life and there is no way to stop them (other than changing your
phone number). I have posted the FCC information in my root directory under
the file name fcc.
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rcurl
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response 238 of 365:
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Nov 13 20:07 UTC 2000 |
Not until the clotting process is initiated. If you have any free (not at
an injury) clotting in your normal situation, you will be lucky not to be
a goner. So "thin" and "thick" blood from a clotting standpoint, are
identically "thin" or "thick" from a flow standpoint. Clotting is
initiated by several factors, one of which is simple injury to the wall of
a blood vessel. Released cell proteins start a cascade of over 10
reactions that finally involve platelets (aggregate in the concrete),
fibrin (reinforcing rods) and collagen (the cement). (There is a separate
system of reactions that stop clotting and dissolve clots, so things can
return to normal as the injury heals - some fibrinolytic drugs are used to
dissolve clots that get free in the bloodstream and cause heart attacks.)
But until all this happens, the blood flows the same whether "thin" or
"thick" from a clotting standpoint.
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ashke
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response 239 of 365:
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Nov 13 21:12 UTC 2000 |
Not so. Protien S deficiency prevents blood from not clotting, and based upon
the day to day, your thickness changes. then based upon treatment and your
diet, that also affects it from day to day. Vitamin K is a big factor.
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birdy
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response 240 of 365:
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Nov 13 22:42 UTC 2000 |
Oh, I love winter. =) It's summer that annoys me. I'm overly-sensitive to
heat but deal with cold quite well. Yooper blood, baby! ;-)
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beeswing
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response 241 of 365:
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Nov 13 23:39 UTC 2000 |
::blink::
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rcurl
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response 242 of 365:
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Nov 14 00:22 UTC 2000 |
Re #236: I have been talking about the flow thickness (viscosity). Vitamin
K or Protein S (and many other proteins) make no difference in that. Again,
that "thickness" that is being talked about is a medical use of the term
for clotability. I'm not disagreeing with your use of the term "thickness"
for this, since doctors use it that way, I am only disagreeing with
their ever having adopted a term like "thin" or "thick" for something that
it had never meant before, and which is very misleading (as this back and
forth indicates).
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mdw
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response 243 of 365:
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Nov 14 01:12 UTC 2000 |
Why not use "viscosity" instead?
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keesan
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response 244 of 365:
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Nov 14 02:35 UTC 2000 |
For cold feet, try a hot water bottle. Until your feet warm up, the blood
vessels are constricted and therefore cannot carry much heat to your feet,
so that they will not warm up fast by themselves. Once they are warmed up,
they will keep themselves warm given enough insulation. This mechanism keeps
the rest of you from freezing.
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other
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response 245 of 365:
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Nov 14 03:23 UTC 2000 |
Wow. Again I am disabused of a long held notion about the nature of reality.
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senna
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response 246 of 365:
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Nov 14 05:32 UTC 2000 |
As was once again evidified, I am sensitive to neither temperature extreme.
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rcurl
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response 247 of 365:
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Nov 14 07:00 UTC 2000 |
Re #243 - because viscosity is not what they mean by "thin" and "thick"
(sigh.....)
I am also, like senna, rather insensitive to temperature changes. It takes
me a while to even begin to think it is "too hot" or "too cold". Once when
travelling through Nevada in summer I did think it was a bit hot (it was
104 F). We stopped and went swimming in the Colorado, which was at about
45 F. It was amazingly refreshing and we didn't feel the heat for hours
after that. The body is amazingly adaptable.
Incidentally, the body is adapted to having cold extremeties. The
arterial-venous system carrying blood to the hands and feet exchange heat
in what is called "counter-current exchange". That is, the warm artierial
blood flowing to the extremeties gives up heat to the returning cool
venous blood, warming it. The result is that the body core is isolated
thermally to some extent from the temperature of the extremeties. If this
system were not in place, cold extremities would cool the body core much
more quickly and thoroughly than they do.
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mary
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response 248 of 365:
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Nov 14 13:35 UTC 2000 |
I have never heard anyone in the medical field refer to blood that was
either clotting too quickly or too slowly as being "thick or thin". Maybe
you heard this on ER? ;-)
What is said is that someone has a coagulopathy. The details of which
will be described as a specific syndrome or status, such as a clotting
factor (insert number) deficiency, or DIC, or Sickle Cell, etc. The list
is long.
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