Hello all
Can anyone offer me any advice from their personal experiences of secondary Raynaud's phenomenon. I developed this condition along with my first flare up of inflammatory arthritis in April of this year at age 46. Initially it was severe with up to 15 attacks a day and 3 excruciating finger ulcers and all this was happening over the course of a heatwave! I was prescribed 3 x 5mg/day Nifedipine by my GP (to add to my mini-pharmacy at home) and the condition improved over the next few months so that I was only getting one or two attacks per day and the ulcers slowly healed. My forefingers and middle fingers on both hands are permanently cold to the touch and now that the cold weather has begun I find the attacks are increasing in frequency. My fingertips are really sore and fiddly tasks are becoming painful and difficult. I find that it's not only handling cold items that triggers it but even standing in a breeze or even going from a hot to a warm room. It is really interfering with my work and that stresses me out because I want to stay in my job and I am so terrified of getting ulcers again. It is a huge irritation on top of everything else I'm trying to cope with. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Best wishes to everyone on this forum. I don't know what I would have done without you all over these last months. Actually I do......I would have felt a lot more isolated and frightened and far less hopeful. So Thank you all.
Here is a picture of my Raynaud's. Sometimes it can be one finger, sometimes more but never the thumbs for some reason.
http://imageshack.us/pho...ctivetissuedisorde.jpg/