A WOMAN with a debilitating health condition triggered by stress suffers burning pain as her feet turn yellow.
Ellen Fitzgibbins, 25, sometimes has to wear six pairs of socks at a time and gloves indoors to keep her symptoms at bay.
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Ellen has Raynaud’s – where the blood stops flowing properly to your fingers and toes, causing pain, numbness and pins and needles.
Symptoms can last from minutes to hours.
Thought it doesn’t usually cause serious problems, Raynaud’s can sometimes be a sign of more serious condition.
The syndrome can be activated by the cold, anxiety and stress, but is also linked to underlying autoimmune conditions in some patients.
Ellen’s symptoms are severe enough that she sometimes can’t get food from the fridge without wearing gloves and she’s also had to give up her love of playing football as the cold became too hard to cope with.
The 25-year-old’s feet and hands will turn yellow due to poor circulation – and in once instance it got so bad that her toe turned black.
Ellen, a fitness trainer from Winchester, said: “My earliest memories are of being very sensitive to the cold.
“[Now], if I am eating something [chilled], I won’t hold the bowl or container directly in my hands.
“I will either wrap it in a tea towel or tissue or hold my hand in my sleeve.
“I wear multiple layers even indoors – it is normal for me to have three pairs of socks [or up to six] and two jumpers on at any given time.
“Even everyday showering becomes overwhelming sometimes, as I will have an attack in the shower when the rest of my body is warmer, or as soon as I get out of the shower and become cold as soon as the water stops running.
“[But] I don’t like to put the heating on too often to save money.”
Ellen first noticed something was wrong after moving into a chilly student flat.
She said: “It was an old three-story house with mould and damp.
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“I was on the third floor and the heating didn’t work on that floor.
“[My housemates and I] became quite unsociable – we would take to staying in bed as opposed to getting out in the cold.
“My way of coping was to stand in very hot showers – but this also led to chill-blains [inflamed skin] as I couldn’t feel how hot the water was and how quickly my skin was heating up.
“[My condition] became more evident during football matches, which I used to play, as I would get a stinging sensation in my hands and feet.
Signs of Raynaud’s
Raynaud’s disease means that the small blood vessels in the extremities such as the hands, feet, fingers or toes are over-sensitive to even the slightest changes in temperature, cold conditions and sometimes emotional stress.
When our bodies are exposed to the cold, a normal response is for the blood vessels to become narrower.
When someone has Raynaud’s this reaction may be much more extreme.
It will sometimes cause a noticeable colour change to the affected areas, with the skin turning white, then blue and finally to red as the circulation returns.
This is known as a Raynaud’s attack.
A Raynaud’s attack can be very uncomfortable, and sometimes quite painful.
It can also make everyday tasks, like buttoning a jacket or unzipping a purse, very difficult.
Raynaud’s symptoms generally affect the fingers and toes, but all extremities can be involved, including the hands, feet, ears, nose, lips, tongue and nipples.
Raynaud’s is a common condition thought to affect up to ten million people in the UK.
Symptoms may include:
- Cold fingers and toes
- Colour changes in your skin in response to changes in temperature or stress
- Colours changes in the affected area from white to blue then red
- Numbness, tingling or pain in affected areas
- Stinging or throbbing pain when you’re warm or get relief from stress
Source: Scleroderma & Raynaud’s UK
“I always found the cold very hard to cope with but a lot of the time, I was told to get on with it and be braver.”
At one point, the condition flared up so bad that one of Ellen’s toes turned black with an infection and she rushed to the doctor for help.
She said: “I got antibiotics to treat the infection – they knew it wasn’t deep enough to be permanently damaged and made me come back for a check-up to make sure it was healing.
“My blood pressure was very low so [doctors] didn’t want to give me any medications that would affect that.
“It has never gone that colour again but there is a lot of scar tissue – it is the first toe to get infected or be painful during a flare-up.”
‘Ask for help’
Ellen was diagnosed with Raynaud’s in 2019 but this was not the end of her health ordeal.
She also began suffering from severe reactions to gluten and was diagnosed with Coeliac disease – an autoimmune condition – in 2021.
She explained: “I think that stress was the trigger for both my Raynaud’s and autoimmune conditions – stress of exams and studying and working at the same time, whilst also being emotionally stressed.”
While Ellen now has answers, she has to careful when it gets cold and when eating cold foods and she follows a special diet due to Coeliac disease.
Rising energy bills have also played a role in her ongoing battle with Raynaud’s and she is torn between saving money and keeping her symptoms at bay.
For anyone who suspects that their aversion to the cold could be a more serious underlying condition, Ellen recommends taking the health charity SRUK’s online test, which will direct you to the appropriate support.
She added: “Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
“Find what works for you to manage and live with the condition – and it’s okay if this is different to someone else.”