Cold hands and feet

This morning I took a bus to an appointment at the teaching hospital near Perth. I had to be there at 9:45 so the Scientist dropped me off at the bus station where I caught a direct bus. Although the temperature wasn’t really all that low, it sure felt cold this morning. The bus trip was mostly uneventful and I arrived about twenty five minutes early. I went ahead and signed in at the clinic since there was little else to do. I’d barely sat down when I was called back to sit in the corridor outside the office. It was pretty quiet when I arrived but that was soon to change.

Some patients had been there long before I arrived and were still waiting. One man nearly walked out and another woman wasn’t able to be seen because something was missing from her file and they had to wait for the medical records department to send it through. She was very upset by the time she went in, just before me. Both had been there for appointments scheduled for 8:30 am. Having experienced a lengthy delay in the past (due to an admin. error), I came prepared for a long wait. I used my pda to continue reading Great Expectations. My only concern was that the battery would conk out early and I didn’t have a spare. Fortunately I was called in before this occurred.

My appointment went very well. This visit was to discuss my autoimmune disorder which didn’t seem to be defined on the previous visit. I was quite pleased to see the consultant doctor that I had seen previously. He was quite thorough and didn’t rush the appointment.  Truthfully, I didn’t have much to report but he did review some of the issues we discussed last time.

He seemed to be quite interested in the state of my hands and feet. This was partly to assess any arthritis I have (relatively mild) but also to check for development of Raynaud’s Phenomenon. Questions were asked about swelling and numbness, then about color and temperature changes. I didn’t have much to report but he did spend time checking my hands anyway. All that he noted was that my hands were quite cold. All the time I was on the bus and sitting in the corridor, my hands and feet were quite cold. I just couldn’t get them to warm up. It was especially difficult for my feet since they were covered in socks and shoes and I couldn’t do much to improve circulation. The doctor included this information in the nearly full page of notes he made about this visit.

So the end result is he is saying I do have Sjogren’s syndrome and he went over care of dry eye and mouth issues. Also, I need to take special care to keep hands and feet as warm as possible. He didn’t say I have Raynaud’s although I’d guess I have a good chance of developing it since it’s often a comorbid condition with Sjogren’s syndrome. No bloodwork was required this time and we will just keep monitoring once a year unless anything changes.

A kind of funny thing happened with my cold hands after the doctor poked and prodded them. They warmed up…Maybe it just got the circulation going in my hands. My feet finally warmed up when I went into the shopping centre next to the bus station while waiting for my second bus for the trip home. The coldness has returned a few times and tonight I seem to alternate between cold and hot, especially with my feet.