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Poll Do Your Hands Get Cold When Dissociating?

Do Your Hands Get Cold When You Dissociate?

  • Yes

    Votes: 25 53.2%
  • No

    Votes: 6 12.8%
  • Don't Know

    Votes: 16 34.0%

  • Total voters
    47
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BloomInWinter

MyPTSD Pro
I know that one of the signs I'm beginning to dissociate is when my hands get cold, and often very pale. I have symptoms of what would be called 'Renaud's Phenomenon' & after reading about it, found this statement in Wikipedia very interesting for the parallels to PTSD in both the incidence rate and the onset.


...the Framingham Study finding that 5% of men and 8% of women suffer from Raynaud Phenomenon....

Raynaud's disease, or "Primary Raynaud's", is diagnosed if the symptoms are idiopathic, that is, if they occur by themselves and not in association with other diseases. Some refer to Primary Raynaud's disease as "being allergic to coldness".

It often develops in young women in their teens and early adulthood. Primary Raynaud's is thought to be at least partly hereditaryhttps://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Heredity, although specific genes have not yet been identified.
 
My husbands hands can go white with cold when he has his now rare Dissociating episodes, but I only know because he has mentioned it almost every time.

I will now check if this shows at the beginning or the end of these episodes.
 
My new Psychiatrist diagnosed me with renauds and said it occurs with many PTSD patients. We have spent 4 months getting me the right medicine that I didn't have a bad side effect for (anti-seizure medicine). He said the constant artery constriction can also contribute to migraines and sleeping problems. I thought it sounded sorta crazy at first but now 11 days I have been on depacote with no side effects. My fingers and toes are noticably warmer, I am sleeping better than I have in years, and my migraines seem better so far. I also have less general muscle pain/soreness. I'm optimistic that I'll keep seeing improvements as I take it longer, and the way he explained it does make some sense. For some people the artery constriction gets "stuck" after being in fight or flight mode for a very long time. Hope my experience with renauds helps someone! I'm really happy this guy recognized it, I had flipflops on the first time I saw him and he said do you realize your toes are just slightly purple? hehe.
 
My new Psychiatrist diagnosed me with renauds and said it occurs with many PTSD patients.
Your new psychiatrist is an idiot then and telling you total crap. It is also a medical condition, not a psychiatric / mental health condition, so not sure how accurate your shrink is on the ability to diagnose medicine... a little outside their scope maybe?

In medicine, Raynaud's phenomenon (pronounced /reɪˈnoʊz/, US dict: rā·nōz′) is a vasospastic disorder causing discoloration of the fingers, toes, and occasionally other areas. This condition can also cause nails to become brittle with longitudinal ridges.

You are the first person ever with PTSD upon this website to even say they have been diagnosed with it. What does that tell you about your psychiatrists statement, let alone their scope to diagnose it in the first place?

PTSD doesn't even make the wikipedia lists of secondary effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynaud's_phenomenon#Secondary_Raynaud.27s_.28syndrome.29 and the only thing listed is beta blockers which have been used with trauma, but are not used frequently with PTSD. That trial started and ended and was only determined to be a preventative measure to trauma affecting the brain, not an after measure to assist PTSD.

My advice would be to smack your shrink around the back of the head and tell them to stick at what they know, not delve into medicine they do not practice.
 
Anthony I'm not sure why I deserved such a harsh rebuke. I was just replying with my experiences and I didn't lie. I don't want to get in a forum war with you but I am a very nice person and will try to take your comments and process them but the tone was so harsh it is as if I were lieing or intentionally hurting people, and I believe I've been a good and responsible member of this community and I would like to continue to be one, because this community has been instrumental in my healing and I am very, very thankful for you in providing this forum and all the hard work you do.

I didn't start this thread but replied with my experiences. My Therapist (Psychologst) is an expert on PTSD and has authored or co-authored several books on the subject, he referred me to this Psychiatrist who has a special interest in PTSD and sees many PTSD patients. Prolonged stress does effect the body in many physical ways such as irritable bowel, migraines, body aches, etc... they are now starting to see now which areas of the brain show the signs of damage through trauma also so it is not just all "in the mind" as far as I can tell, the physical needs to be considered. Though you and I may disagree, I believe him that in his experience restricted blood flow (mild renaud's) could be one of these results and considering this possibility in trying different medications has helped me tremendously. It is hard to get a Physician that will view ailments through the lens of PTSD, trying to discern which may be related and which are not, and I think that is what this man does and it has helped me. If you look a little further on the internet and wikipedia you will see that there are mentions of stress triggering renauds, even though the references are not as many as the other things, as you mentioned.

Again, I am saddened that you felt my experiences were invalid, and if I did anything wrong perhaps in the future I will understand what that is better, but I'm sorry my post upset you.

Jennie
 
Also, in your own reposted article "Stress On Your Body" [DLMURL]http://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/stress-on-your-body.13777/[/DLMURL] it says:
the tendency for your blood pressure to rise might indicate a reactive narrowing of the blood vessels (arteries) when you experience situations that are stressful for you.

Which is consistent with what Raynaud's syndrome is believed to be:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynaud's_syndrome
the phenomenon is believed to be the result of vasospasms that decrease blood supply to the respective regions. Emotional stress and cold are classic triggers of the phenomenon.

So I'm not sure why it would be a stretch that a Doctor familiar with PTSD and the resulting stress it puts on your body might refer to this as mild raynaud's.

I'm going to take a forum break to calm down. I hope you forgive my reaction, but I feel like you were telling me that I was a total and complete idiot for listening to my own doctor, and it's upset me. Please forgive me.
Jennie
 
Hi Jennie,

As I said, your doctors an idiot, not your an idiot. Clear difference. It seems you found the answer as to why, but yet, why should you have had to in the first place, when your doctor is supposed to be the expert and not tell you that you have something you don't, when you have PTSD? Hence we revolve to my original statement, your doctor is an idiot, and again, a psychiatrist at that is what you said, made such a statement, not doctor of medicine.

Psychiatrist = mental health
Doctor = physical health

Again, you are not the idiot, but your doctor is. Once again this is the typical over-diagnosis, most likely would love to prescribe you something for it, ie. a blood thinner or such type medication.... wait for it... because they get kickbacks from prescribing medication.

As originally posted, a psychiatrist of any worth is the specialist of mental health, PTSD being in that field, so one would only assume, as your treating physician and having your best interests at heart, that they would know their job and you would not have to find the answer for yourself and its direct correlation to stress in relation to PTSD.

I stand by my initial assessment.... your doctors an idiot. Get a new one would be my opinion.

Again, not you, your doctor. Just wanted to make that clear.
 
Yeah I got it, I'm not an idiot but the doctor is an idiot.

So, if I went to an M.D. and got a diagnosis, that would be acceptable, but if I went to a person who first got his M.D. (as all psychiatrists must) then continued to get, say, a specialty in neuropsychology and a PHD in psychology, they would not be qualified to consider physical ailments along with my mental ailments and how they interact? Even though the 2nd person has the same qualification as the first person, just more schooling and additional qualifications?

The logic doesn't make sense to me.

As it says here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatrist

Psychiatrists also differ from psychologists in that they are physicians and the entirety of their post-graduate training is revolved around the field of medicine.[69]Psychiatrists can therefore counsel patients, prescribe medication, order laboratory tests, orderneuroimaging, and conduct physical examinations.[70]

This DOCTOR was referred to me by my PHD Psychologist who is the head of the masters of psychology program at a large university. I have every reason to believe he is legit and the referring psychologist is trustworthy to recommend an appropriate DOCTOR for me.

I understand that you are very knowledgeable in PTSD but I'm just wondering how, on an internet forum, where you have incomplete information, you could know with such certainty to make such a forceful and brash verdict of this man as an "idiot" whom I should "smack ... around the back of the head and tell them to stick at what they know, not delve into medicine they do not practice." This is why I said your rebuke was harsh, I think a more discussion based approach is appropriate here.
 
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