 Poster: A snowHead
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I was out skiing this weekend and one foot felt very cold. Later on it, the second and third toes became purple, but not sure whether this is bruising or frostbite. Any experience with this?
Thanks
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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No personal experience but I thought frostbitten extremities went white?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@pam w, initially yes, then they go black and drop off.......
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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The toe or the toenail?
What temp were you in
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@mh8782, much more likely to be chillblains. As @pam w, says, frostbite typically white and waxy before rotting and festering.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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bruising
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Last week in la Plagne, up on the Glacier it was -20 on a couple of the days. As much as i tried to protect myself my fingers and toes froze.
Circulation came back rather painfully as we descended (I wasn't the only one suffering).
However my two big toes are still numb a week after. I'm told it's nerve damage and they will recover at the rate of 1mm a month. My toes are warm to the touch and slightly red and a bit swollen.
Rather uncomfortable at times but manageable.
Makes me wonder how those climbing Everest manage in such extreme temperatures.
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@mh8782, ...get to a medic.
I have climbed for a long time and have experienced frostbite, frostnip and other damage.
1 black frostbite damage is extremely painful and involves tissue necrosis - dangerous and must be treated - low level infection can turn into something nasty like blood poisoning.
2 frostnip is painful on reheating (very painful) but tissue effusion comes back and the tissue recovers
3 nerve damage CAN be temporary - but note that mine is not. And vascular damage can be present which causes a problem later, including Baker’s Cysts
If you have not had bruising before, then something vascular and/or neural might be going on. Upshot - get to a medic swiftly. Don’t treat any of this as alarmist - just get to a medic for a check. My right foot is now in a bit of a state from frostbite contracted in 2003 and its not draining resource to get some re-assurance and support.
Re Everest - the great ranges are full of reliquary digits - like the many fingers of St Catherine. Dead as dead. Read Beck Weather’s account. Having a nose is quite useful.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@pam w, first, numb, pale, icy (if on cheek or nose), then white and woody, then all kinds of colours, then black, necrotic, smelly, and very nasty.
I have had frostnip (precursor frostbite) a number of times skiing and climbing; you don’t feel it at all. So friends need to be alert to small patches of frost forming on cheeks, nostril perimeters, and so on. Fingers and toes are much more problematic. Inside a boot all sorts of things can be happening to a numb toe, and I don’t pull over the moment I get a numb toe but I do sure as hell make sure my boots are not too tight (restricting blood flow) and monitor them. Massaging them at the end of the day helps, after an extended period of deep cold. But the damage I did to one of my feet was due to ignoring all the warning signs I would have heeded whilst climbing, and just pressing on with skiing. At the end of the day, in boots which I knew at the time still needed letting out, I saw that I had done a lot of damage. Likewise, such damage was more likely due to all the sports climbing I have done in the summer, squeezing my feet into crazy-small climbing slippers, and ignoring that fact that my feet were numb for maybe seven hours at a stretch, likewise winter mountain-biking in far-too-thin clipless shoes....oh the errors of youth.....
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| pam w wrote: |
| No personal experience but I thought frostbitten extremities went white? |
That's how Ranulph Fiennes describe his frostbite; "my fingers were ramrod stiff and ivory white. They might as well have been wood ... I had seen enough frostbite in others to realise I was in serious trouble"
I find his approach remarkable:
"I purchased a set of fretsaw blades at the village shop, put the little finger in my Black & Decker folding table's vice, and gently sawed through the dead skin and bone just above the live skin line," he writes. "The moment I felt pain or spotted blood, I moved further into the dead zone. I also turned the finger around several times and cut into it from different sides. This worked well, and the little finger's knuckle finally dropped off after some two hours of work." It took him five days to do the rest; a job, he says, well done."
From https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/oct/05/features11.g21
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@mh8782, were you wearing purple socks?
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You know it makes sense.
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@mh8782, come back! .... or are you laid up in hospital with complications?......
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@mh8782, I'd worry if my other extremity was purple at the end.... Oh!!! Wait a minute 
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Poster: A snowHead
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