Mum living with dead man fingers
IT was meant to be a red-hot honeymoon. But Chelsea Wood spent it in excruciating pain, her fingers and toes turning blue in the 40C heat.
Mum-of-one Chelsea, 28, suffers from Raynaud’s, which makes her body react excessively to temperature changes. It is so severe she is on 17 tablets a day and has had a major operation to slice nerves in her neck.
Today Chelsea looks back on that 2013 trip with a shudder. She says: “For our honeymoon I chose Sharm el-Sheikh because it was so hot. But I’d have an attack at the slightest change in temperature.
“Holding a cold drink, walking out the sea, eating ice cream would mean blue fingers.”
Raynaud’s is a painful circulatory condition where muscles in the blood vessel walls contract and stop blood flow.
Fingers and toes turn white then blue as the trapped blood loses oxygen. It affects ten million people. Attacks can last up to an hour.
Earlier this month, TV presenter Jenni Falconer, 42, revealed her own battle with Raynaud’s, posting a picture of what she calls her “dead man’s finger”.
Chelsea says: “I saw Jenni’s photo and thought, ‘Thank God she’s showing people how bad it can be.’” Since her diagnosis aged 15, Chelsea’s condition has worsened dramatically.
The pain is now so severe she sometimes cannot walk. Everyday tasks, from getting food out of the freezer, climbing out of the shower or washing hands, are a challenge.
“It’s a daily battle,” says Chelsea, who also has an underactive thyroid. “I can get pain in all my extremities – from my ears and nose to nipples.
“I’m often cutting myself as I can’t feel knives. My fingers are so numb. In winter there are days I can’t walk. If it’s a sunny day in summer and I walk into the shade I go blue.” The only respite she had was when she was pregnant. The baby acted like a small internal heater.
But only five days after giving birth to Toby, all her symptoms returned. Even breastfeeding was impossible. She cannot go swimming with him or give him baths
“In cold weather I can’t play outside with him,” says Chelsea.
“Mum guilt is one of my biggest things. That affects my mental health as well.”
Among the 17 tablets she takes every day, including pills to help her extreme pain, Chelsea also takes antidepressants.
Her consultant Dr Klocke, at Russells Hall Hospital near her home in Dudley, West Mids, prescribed her nifedipine – a drug that opens blood vessels – but it gave her bad headaches.
She had the major neck op in 2009, more medication, steroid infusions and steroid injections – but nothing has helped improve her Raynaud’s.
Determined
This month she also had Botox injected into her palms to inflate the capillaries in her hand.
“It worked for three days,” says Chelsea, who works with children in care with The Albion charity. “I’ve learned to accept it 13 years down the line. The pain is just a part of my life.”
With the support of husband Ian, 29, a motorcycle technician, she is determined not to let the condition break her.
“It’s made me an even stronger person than I was before. I also want to show my son not to let obstacles in life get you down but to find ways around them.”