In the case when a person’s sweat glands function stably, the feet sweat only in certain situations. Such as hot weather, stressful situations, when playing sports, etc. Most people's feet get cold in the cool season, but there are also those who experience a feeling of chilliness even in hot weather.
If, for no apparent reason, your feet begin to not only sweat, but also freeze, you should carefully examine the possible causes and select effective measures to combat the problem. After all, this problem can be both aesthetic and medical.
Among the most common reasons may be the following:
In order to understand why feet freeze at normal temperatures or in winter, you should pay close attention to the existing symptoms. The simplest option may be a violation of a person’s blood circulation, which is why circulation does not always occur stably in the end points, the legs. The following measures will be effective in this case.
Try massaging your feet with your fingers, this will promote blood flow and warm up your limbs. After the massage, be sure to wear socks. A contrast shower for the feet will also help, helping to restore blood circulation in the human body. Don’t forget to lead an active lifestyle, walk more, but in high-quality shoes.
When using medications, pay attention to the presence of antibacterial agents in the composition.
The most common phenomenon in the cold season is severe freezing of the extremities, after which a characteristic fever occurs and sweat with a strong and unpleasant odor begins to be released, causing blushing in the circle of family and friends. This aroma appears due to the mixing of sweat with water evaporation when the feet freeze.
When a problem arises with excessive sweating of the feet and their freezing, a person experiences a feeling of discomfort. This is due to the characteristic unpleasant sensations and specific smell that comes from the limbs. Among other things, constant moisture becomes an excellent breeding ground for microbes and numerous bacteria. As a result, foot fungus occurs, peeling, peeling of nails and all this is accompanied by a pungent odor.
Depending on the stage of sweating, the doctor selects suitable methods of treating the disease. But, first, you should know about the basic rules, adhering to which, you will be able to prevent sweating of the extremities.
But sticking to certain rules is sometimes not enough to avoid unpleasant consequences. Especially when the disease has already begun to manifest itself and causes a lot of inconvenience to the person. In order to choose the most appropriate and effective treatment, it is worth consulting with specialists and diagnosing the true cause of sweating feet.
There are several ways to combat severe sweating of the lower extremities. Among which:
For those who want to get rid of sweating and chilly feet using traditional methods, you should try the following recipes:
If you experience regular sweating of the extremities, regardless of the weather or type of activity at the time, you should consult a specialist. Pay special attention to cases when your feet are also cold. Such symptoms indicate a disorder occurring at the physiological level of a person. You should not delay the examination, as untimely treatment can lead to undesirable health consequences.
As a rule, we pay little attention to the “chilliness” of our feet and hands. As a last resort, we wear warmer boots outside and warm socks in the apartment. And few people think about why, even at night in bed, their feet remain “icy” - and until they warm up, sleep does not come.
Why do extremities get cold, and what symptoms can be considered alarming?
When your feet and hands are cold from drafts in the apartment, hypothermia or wet shoes, this is normal. The problem is resolved quickly and does not require close examination.
But if your limbs remain cold even in a warm room, and you are so used to it that you don’t even pay attention, you should still pay attention to the problem and find the cause.
If cold extremities are not a one-time phenomenon (or associated with specific reasons), but permanent, you should listen to your body. Under such a seemingly innocent symptom, one of the diseases described above may be hidden.
Remember that self-medication is unacceptable! Only an examination by a specialist will help to accurately identify the cause and select the necessary treatment.
Trying to find the cause on your own can aggravate the problem (a disease detected at an early stage is much easier to treat).
If the problem of regular freezing of your limbs is familiar to you, then first of all contact a specialist and find out the cause .
Firstly, the legs are predisposed to chilliness due to the peculiarities of their constitution: both the muscle and fat layers in them, which help conserve heat, are insignificant. But the surface of the skin that gives off heat is relatively large in area.
Secondly, according to statistics, permafrost syndrome most often affects women aged 15 to 45 years. Men, on the other hand, freeze half as often, and even then only after 50 years, when the hormonal background of the body changes.
So if an elderly person’s feet are constantly cold, this usually indicates a lack of capillary or peripheral circulation. This leads to disruption of the flow of “warming” blood into small vessels.
This problem affects women more often, but the cause is not yet known. Thus, some young women develop a disease of unknown origin, the symptom of which is poor circulation in the legs with the symptom of “frozen” - Raynaud’s disease.
Due to spasm of small blood vessels, the skin on the legs first turns pale, then becomes bluish and numb. Sometimes there is throbbing pain and tingling. And since it is unknown why vasospasm occurs, only the symptoms of the disease have to be treated - primarily frequent attacks of cold extremities. But, on the other hand, we know that cold, trauma, mental stress, and smoking contribute to the occurrence of such attacks. Therefore, to prevent the onset of Raynaud's disease, these risk factors should be avoided.
For example, varicose veins. With this disease, in addition to swelling of the feet, dilated veins of the lower leg or “stars” on the skin, as well as pain in the lower leg area that increases when walking, a feeling of coldness in the legs can often occur.
General circulatory failure can also lead to the appearance of “permafrost” syndrome: disturbances in the functioning of the heart, vegetative-vascular dystonia. A person with such disorders tolerates physical activity worse, he experiences shortness of breath when walking up the stairs, and swelling of the feet is possible.
Increased chilliness can also be a symptom of autonomic disorders, characteristic, for example, of diabetes mellitus or decreased thyroid function. Another cause of frozen feet is endarteritis, a chronic vascular disease primarily affecting the arteries of the legs. With this disease, the lumen of the blood vessels gradually narrows until they are completely closed.
You should take this symptom quite seriously - it may indicate the development of any of the listed diseases. To accurately determine the cause of chilliness, it is necessary to take blood tests, do an ECG and echocardiogram, and ultrasound of the blood vessels of the legs. The examination will help the doctor make a diagnosis and prescribe appropriate treatment for permafrost.
Daily foot massage - with your hands or a dry brush - can also help combat chilly feet.
To quickly warm your feet, I can recommend a kind of alcohol compress: moisten the soles of thin socks with alcohol (if there is no alcohol, vodka will do) and put the socks on your feet, which have been preheated in hot water. Wear warm wool socks over thin socks. You will immediately feel a surge of warmth and feel much more comfortable.
Or before going outside, lubricate your freezing feet with badger, mink or nutria fat.
Everyone knows that you need to keep your feet warm since childhood, but what to do if your feet are constantly cold and you can’t cope with this problem on your own?
There are many reasons why your feet may be cold. This may be caused by poor-quality shoes, the habit of dressing too lightly in the cold season, a peculiarity of the person’s constitution, or internal diseases.
Most often, the feet get cold in women from 15 to 45 years old , this is due to the hormonal characteristics of the body and the habit of the fair sex to pay more attention to beauty rather than to the practicality and thermal insulation properties of shoes. Older people often face this problem - after 50 years, most of them have hormonal imbalances, develop one or more diseases of the vascular system, and the body is affected by many predisposing factors, such as excess weight, smoking and poor diet.
1. If your feet only get cold outside or in certain conditions, then most likely the culprit is too light or tight shoes, incorrectly selected clothing and other similar reasons. In such cases, feet get cold only in the cold season and only outside the house - as soon as you come home and put on warm slippers, all problems immediately disappear;
2. It is much more difficult if your feet are cold all the time, even in a warm room, and no warm shoes or woolen socks can save the situation. Constantly freezing feet are a sign of poor circulation in the lower extremities and it is necessary to find out exactly what is causing it.
1. Vegetative-vascular dystonia - with this disease, the normal innervation of blood vessels changes, the speed of blood flow in the vessels decreases and capillary circulation is disrupted. People suffering from VSD are constantly cold, they have cold and slightly damp feet and palms, as well as a tendency to headaches, migraines, fainting and exercise intolerance;
2. Anemia and other deficiency conditions - a lack of iron, vitamins A, E, C and others provokes a decrease in oxygen in the blood, makes blood vessels weaker and more brittle, and also impairs blood circulation in general. In these conditions, a person feels constant fatigue, drowsiness, headaches, often gets sick and cannot warm up even in a warm room;
3. Varicose veins - ugly “stars” on the vessels are not all that occurs with this disease. The structure and muscle tone of the blood vessels are disrupted, blood flows into the lower extremities with difficulty, which is why the patient feels pain and numbness, swelling appears on the legs, and they are constantly cold;
4. Changes in blood pressure - prolonged hyper- or hypotension also lead to circulatory disorders. At low pressure, the blood flow in the lower extremities weakens, and at high pressure it hardly flows into the spasmodic vessels of the legs;
5. Hormonal disorders - decreased thyroid function, diabetes mellitus and age-related changes in women also often cause constant chilliness in the legs. Hypothyroidism is characterized by constant fatigue, tearfulness, decreased mood, arrhythmias, brittle nails and hair. Diabetes mellitus causes increased sweating, increased heart rate, rapid decrease or increase in body weight, as well as impaired innervation of the lower extremities - the legs cease to feel heat, touch and even pain;
6. Worm infestation – massive infestation of the body with worms causes a feeling of chilliness and coldness throughout the body, especially in the legs. This is due to the abundant release of toxins by parasites, to which the vessels react;
7. Taking certain medications - long-term use of beta-blockers, other drugs that lower blood pressure, medications containing ergot and some others causes spasm of peripheral vessels and a feeling of coldness in the legs and palms;
8. Other reasons - the feeling of constant coldness in the legs can be caused by other, less common diseases: grade 3-4 osteochondrosis, severe allergies, fungal infection, obliterating endarteritis and others.
If your feet remain cold all the time and all your efforts to warm them are unsuccessful, you should think about immediately contacting a doctor; perhaps your body needs urgent help and treatment. And if such an unpleasant sensation occurs periodically and does not cause any special problems, you can cope with cold feet using the following methods:
And besides, you should take your health seriously: start doing gymnastics or go to the gym, establish proper nutrition, give up bad habits and strong coffee, sleep more and be less nervous, take a course of vitamins and buy yourself only comfortable shoes!
Sweating is a natural process that the body cannot do without. It is considered a protective reaction that ensures normal thermoregulation.
But many people experience cold and sweaty feet in winter. This phenomenon has an aesthetic inconvenience. The solution to this problem is described in the article.
Why do my feet sweat and get cold? In this case, it is necessary to undergo a comprehensive examination to exclude the following ailments:
Also, such signs appear during menopausal changes in women due to poor blood circulation, addiction to alcohol and drugs, as well as an asthenic physique. There are other answers to the question of why your feet sweat and get cold. The causes of hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) may be related to genetics. This condition is also influenced by nervous disorders with incorrectly selected shoes.
If your feet are cold and sweaty, you need to deal with this. First you need to go to an endocrinologist and dermatologist to determine the cause of this phenomenon. No action should be taken without specialists. Even if you manage to get rid of the symptom, the disease that caused this phenomenon will remain.
If increased sweating with frozen feet is observed in heart failure or diabetes, it is necessary to begin getting rid of the ailment as soon as possible. The type of treatment is selected based on the causes of this phenomenon identified by the doctor. This will allow you to get effective results.
Treatment must be comprehensive. In addition to the therapy needed to eliminate the disease, the following should be used:
The effectiveness of treating hyperhidrosis increases with physical therapy. Usually it is prescribed to perform baths with water through which a slight electric current is passed. About 10 procedures are required with a break of 1 day. You should also use antiperspirants.
If, regardless of the time of year, your feet sweat and get cold, what should you do? In this case, decoctions and infusions of herbs and foot massage using lavender oil will be useful. Many patients find relief from rubbing with lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. A special diet and prevention are also required.
If your feet sweat and get cold in winter, then it is necessary to take baths with medicinal plants, which will eliminate excessive sweating. The procedures have antiseptic and anti-inflammatory effects, which will restore blood circulation in the extremities. You can use any of the following recipes:
If your feet are cold and sweaty, you need to use a special diet. Some foods cause excessive sweating. In this case an exception is required:
The menu should include buckwheat, lean boiled meat, greens, carrots. It is useful to eat figs as a fruit, but it is better not to include strawberries in your diet.
There are folk “recipes” for those cases when your limbs are constantly cold:
With the help of such products you can quickly warm your feet. These recipes will help you out even on the coldest days of winter.
Feet also get cold and sweat due to the use of synthetic shoes that don’t fit properly, low-quality socks, and tights. In winter, you should not allow your feet to become hypothermic; frostbite, even in a minor form, can cause circulatory problems. You also need to pay attention to hygiene. Returning home, you need to take off your shoes and rinse your feet with water, change your socks and put on slippers.
Preventive measures against excessive sweating and poor circulation include:
Performing contrast baths is an effective method of preventing foot hyperhidrosis. Pour warm water into 1 bowl and cold water into the other. You should lower your legs into each for 2-3 minutes. It is useful to perform the procedures every day.
You should remember about vitamins. In this situation, vitamins P, B, and C are considered the best, since they have a positive effect on vascular health. They are sold only in pharmacies. You need to eat fresh vegetables, chicken liver, eggs and lean meat.
Sweaty and cold feet should be treated after being examined by a doctor. Only a specialist will be able to identify the cause of this phenomenon and prescribe effective remedies.
If your hands and feet are cold, the reason is not always a high sensitivity to cold. Moreover, resistance to low temperatures, as the main cause of the problem, is not very common. So why do your limbs get cold, and how to get rid of it?
Coldness in the hands and feet can occur to varying degrees, depending on the cause. Some people feel discomfort only outside in cold weather. Others are constantly freezing, even at home, in the warmth. When the extremities of the hands and feet become chronically cold, the reasons may be hidden in quite serious diseases. Therefore, you should never ignore eternally cold hands and feet! You definitely need to find the cause of this condition!
Among the main reasons why hands and feet always freeze:
Cold hands and feet occur after a stroke, with VSD, dermatitis, allergies, age-related changes (this reason is typical for both women and men after 50 years, when the human immune system weakens). Sometimes the cause of chilliness is worms or fungal infections. Cold hands and feet are also sometimes caused by being overweight or severely dehydrated. The reason that the limbs are cold may also be inflammation of the nerves.
Depending on the cause, hands and feet get cold at certain times - in the evening, in the morning, during sleep. Keep an eye on this if cold hands and/or feet bother you always or often. This will help the doctor identify the cause and prescribe the most effective treatment.
Attention! If you start to feel cold, do not try to find the cause and diagnose it yourself. Cold hands and feet can be a sign of a medical condition that should be treated as quickly as possible.
If your fingers and toes begin to get very cold, if your hands and feet become freezing even indoors, use emergency methods. They will allow you to quickly warm up frozen limbs, whatever the reason.
Express help to stay warm
If your feet and hands are cold, whatever the reason, it will help to warm up:
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If you do not want to freeze, regardless of the reason, you must:
To stay warm, the menu should include:
A balanced diet allows you to accelerate the strengthening of blood vessels and quickly eliminate the causes of cold extremities.
To get rid of chilliness in the hands and feet (regardless of the cause), hot pine baths are used in folk medicine. Positive results are obtained by taking tincture of horse chestnut flowers, as well as tinctures of ginseng and eleutherococcus, which strengthen the immune system.
Natural flower honey is also very useful, which should be dissolved in the mouth until completely dissolved, 1 teaspoon 4-5 times a day.
To avoid freezing, you should take a fatty hot meal (for example, chicken broth) before going outside.
To warm icy hands and feet, use vodka tincture of red hot pepper, which is rubbed on the feet, legs, and palms.
What is absolutely forbidden to do?
Regardless of the reason why your hands and feet are cold, when trying to warm up, do not put them in hot water. Also, do not drink alcoholic beverages - their vasodilatory effects are short-lived. After some time, the blood vessels will narrow even more, and the arms and legs will begin to freeze more. You can’t “warm up” with alcohol even in the cold in winter - you won’t stop freezing, and alcohol often causes frostbite.
Even if you know the reason why your limbs are chilly, in any case, at least for a while, give up coffee, strong tea and other products containing caffeine and tannin. Tobacco is also a cause of vasospasm, so stop or minimize smoking.
Staying in one position for a long time impairs blood circulation, and the limbs begin to freeze. When working sedentarily, be sure to take physical breaks. Even a few swings of your arms and legs and simple squats will help “get your blood flowing” and make you feel less cold.
Important! While sitting, do not cross your legs - after just 10 minutes of sitting in this position, blood circulation is disrupted and you will freeze.
If you start to feel cold often, and other symptoms begin to accompany cold hands and feet, do not delay visiting a doctor.
Reasons to seek immediate medical attention:
If your feet are cold and your body is burning, if your limbs are not only cold, but also numb, if your heart hurts, if you feel sick or have any other signs of illness, get examined as quickly as possible.
If your hands and feet are cold, the disease that is causing the cold hands and feet must be treated. But since cold hands and feet can be caused by various diseases, you should first contact your family doctor (general practitioner). He will prescribe the necessary studies to identify the cause. In addition to a general blood test, it is also necessary to do a cholesterol test and an ultrasound of the blood vessels. Also, if you start to freeze, additional examinations may be required (ultrasound of the thyroid gland, tests to detect fungal infections, worms, etc.)
“When I started to feel very cold, I underwent a full examination, but no health-related reasons were found. And the cold in my legs bothered me even in my sleep. Then I started strengthening the blood vessels, and after a few months everything went away.”
“It didn’t bother me much that my right leg was freezing, especially since I didn’t feel the cold all the time. I didn’t know what diseases this happened with, and I didn’t go to the doctors. As a result, she ended up in the hospital with an aneurysm. Even minor symptoms cannot be ignored!”
“My hands and feet get cold all the time when I’m nervous. When you feel a chill, this is the first sign of nervous tension. I save myself with sedatives. This helps relieve anxiety, which is also the cause of my other reactions, such as cold sweat, nausea, trembling.”
The main cause of cold toes is impaired microcirculation. In this case, the smallest blood vessels called capillaries are affected. Despite the fact that the name of this small blood vessel has the same Latin root as the word “hair,” the diameter of the capillary is an order of magnitude thinner than a hair and is no more than 5-10 microns. The capillary wall is represented by only one layer of endothelial cells, which ensures fast and easy diffusion of not only oxygen, but also much larger organic substances.
During the cool season, try to keep your feet warm. If you are at home and your feet are cold, you can wear warm socks or slippers. Also, if your feet are cold at home, it is recommended to lay down carpeting that will hide the cold floor. If you are at work and your feet are cold, it is recommended to place a heater under the table.
If your feet are cold, you need to wear high-quality shoes made from natural materials that “breathe.” In no case should shoes be narrow; the legs and feet should be spacious and comfortable, otherwise any compression will lead to difficulty in blood circulation in the legs and, as a result, the legs will freeze. As for women, if their feet are constantly cold, it is recommended to avoid high-heeled shoes.
Without a healthy lifestyle combined with a balanced diet, the effect of even the most modern and highly effective medications will be short-lived. First of all, it is necessary to eliminate bad habits such as smoking. Secondly, establish a strict daily routine, allowing time for walks and playing your favorite sport or other active activity. According to the experience of professional athletes, rapid rotation of the legs helps to effectively disperse the blood. This exercise combines physical activity with centrifugal force, which literally instantly improves blood circulation in the vessels.
Of course, the recommendations that we gave above are the first measures that should to some extent help get rid of the problem if your feet get cold very often. That is, this is a kind of temporary effect that only hides the problem. This is why it is very important to see a doctor and undergo an examination to determine the reasons why your feet are cold. Yes, in most cases this problem is caused by problems with blood vessels, so it is best to undergo an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to diagnose problems with blood vessels, and you will also need to undergo a number of other tests. Based on the information received, a course of treatment will be prescribed.