It’s been cold this week, I’m now sporting three pairs of socks and my feet still feel cold! I don’t think it’s to do with circulation, more misfiring nerve-endings, which just scream ‘cold’. The odd thing is though is that I’ve been getting burning sensations in my feet… burning cold…
I find the cold weather (relative cold.. it’s about 7 Celsius) very difficult to cope with. My hands seem to go numb far more easily. Is this due to circulation, not to the extent of white hands, it’s not that cold, but maybe the blood supply to the nerves dips a bit with vessel constriction and triggers the areas of numbness, which follow all the same nerve pathways that are involved with pressure palsies. My hands become a patchwork of numb areas.
The other thing with being cold is the shivering that inevitably ensues. I shake like a pneumatic drill, muscle spasms become quite violent. Could this also be due to poor muscle innervation, poor sensory feedback of muscular contractions, a poorly regulated closed loop control system. Not only that but the nerve dysfunction with HNPP is quite dynamic, changes can happen on the ‘fly’. Sudden changes of proprioceptive feedback, kinematic feedback and motor activation due to transient nerve conduction changes and conduction block.
I have just found this study online, which provides some very interesting insights into the nature of biologic motor-sensory feedback… this is really cool (getting back to the cold theme!!)
Frequency Control of Motor Patterning by Negative Sensory Feedback
Almost time for me to hibernate…
HNPP Journal 