-
Cold Extremities with IPF.
For the Canadians on this site, it looks like winter has officially descended upon us. Earlier this week the weather was raining and 15 degrees Celsius and last night the temperatures dropped significantly to -14 with the wind chill. Naturally, I felt very chilled as my body adjusted to this drastic temperature change. However, there were certain parts of my body that felt much colder than others, even as I lay buried under my blankets, and I can’t help but wonder if this is related to my idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
No matter how hard I tried last night I couldn’t warm up my toes, my fingers and my nose! I put warming socks on, tried to keep my hands under my duvet and pull the blankets up to my face as much as I could tolerate and I was still cold.
I remember last winter I struggled with feeling excessively cold compared to the years before my IPF. Since the diagnosis of this life-threatening lung disease, I have become intolerant of the cold. The snow this morning is really pretty while glistening in the sun, but I have no desire to go outside in it.
Since your diagnosis of IPF/PF, have you become more intolerant of the cold?
Do you struggle with keeping your extremities warm in the chilly temperatures?
Share your experience with us, and any tips you might have for helping with this.
-
1 Reply
-
Hi Everyone,
The italicized reply below is from our forum member Lesley Scheerle about managing the cold with IPF. I just changed it to this forum topic, at her request 🙂
Hi Charlene: Yes, it’s darn cold here. We live on Lake Winnipeg (the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world) and already the wind is sending up ice to coat the rocky shoreline. Nasty, nasty. But the cold weather brings on a whole new set of things to get used to – trying to keep the line from the 02 tank to my nose warm. Not too easy. I’ve read that you should run the line underneath your clothes to use your body heat for warmth, but in trying that I found it really awkward. Any helpful suggestions from cold climate people? Maybe this should be under a different topic in the forums? Thanks, Lesley
Ah, Lesley that sounds really cold already … we definitely don’t have it that cold yet in Ontario. That said, I am shocked that the snow we have had is remaining on the ground, usually at this time of year it snows but then melts as it isn’t cold enough yet. I couldn’t imagine a wind so cold that it causes the water to freeze on the rocks. It must be so hard for you to breathe in that, is it? Hmm… I don’t have any really good tips about keeping the line warm unfortunately. Perhaps others in this forum do? I can imagine keeping it under our clothes would be a little awkward, as you say. Do you have a garage connected right to your home? I think the only suggestion I can think of is to make sure you get in/out of the car in the garage to at least keep the O2 line from being exposed to the wind? This is a really good question and I’d love to hear from others who might have some insight.
Did you have a nice weekend Lesley?
Warm regards,
Charlene.
Log in to reply.