Friggin cold weather again

[Chris34]

Ground was frozen up till about lunchtime around here and even then it was only unfrozen in the sunny spots. Had a conservatory roof to finish from yesterday that was a little longer than expected and another conservatory roof afterwards.

Left it until 12:30 to do the first one and got there and it was frozen, ground frozen and too dangerous to start. So off went to the next one.

Next one had been in the sun and felt a lot better... or so it seemed...

vacuumed cleared the gutters and it was a little frozen but mainly leaves so all ok, but my hands ? wearing the best gloves available just no use, absolute pain and wouldn't go numb like they would normally do, just pins and needles, persevered and cleared the gutters.

Upon clearing the gutters it was about 13:15 and my hands were giving me total grief, on top of this I could see that within about an hour the sun was going to dip below the house roofs in the distance. I went up on the ladder and could see that one side of the roof was still partially frozen. So given that my hands were killing me and the roof was still frozen and likely to freeze whilst trying to clean it I decided it was best to write the day off and come back another day.

Went to tell the customer and as soon as she opened the door I struggled to speak, I suddenly went light headed a bit and started feeling sick, she panicked and got me to sit down and I thought it would pass, but it didn't and I started to feel really weird , like I was either going to pass out or be sick and my chest felt a bit tight, after about 10 minutes I wasn't getting any better and she had to ring 999 and get an ambulance. It was classed as an emergency and took an hour to arrive, in that time my fingers started to feel more normal and after that I started to recover and felt fine but tired when they arrived. Gave me an ECG check and all the usual checks and all was fine which is what I expected but had to be done to be on the safe side. They put it down to the cold and my body's reaction to my fingers, which is what I thought but I've never felt it like that before, usually they recover but I was getting worse despite being in the warmth.

So not the best day and another issue with my friggin fingers. Absolutely does my head in. Everything else I'm absolutely fine, if anything a little hot but my bloody fingers, doesn't matter which gloves I wear, not of them work when it's like anything below 3c.

I'm going to splash the cash and buy battery heated gloves, think it's the only thing I haven't tried and I cannot go on like this as I'll end up in a bad way if I'm not careful.

Oh, and 1 hour for an ambulance for an emergency ? god help anyone on deaths door around here ?

Now got to get a hot bath to try and remove all the ECG tabs stuck all over me without ripping all my hairs out ? feels like they're super glued on ?

Moral of the story, you have to do what's best for yourself. If you suffer from the cold you have to listen to your own body and decide for yourself what's ok to work in.

 

[Pjj]

Ground was frozen up till about lunchtime around here and even then it was only unfrozen in the sunny spots. Had a conservatory roof to finish from yesterday that was a little longer than expected and another conservatory roof afterwards.

Left it until 12:30 to do the first one and got there and it was frozen, ground frozen and too dangerous to start. So off went to the next one.

Next one had been in the sun and felt a lot better... or so it seemed...

vacuumed cleared the gutters and it was a little frozen but mainly leaves so all ok, but my hands ? wearing the best gloves available just no use, absolute pain and wouldn't go numb like they would normally do, just pins and needles, persevered and cleared the gutters.

Upon clearing the gutters it was about 13:15 and my hands were giving me total grief, on top of this I could see that within about an hour the sun was going to dip below the house roofs in the distance. I went up on the ladder and could see that one side of the roof was still partially frozen. So given that my hands were killing me and the roof was still frozen and likely to freeze whilst trying to clean it I decided it was best to write the day off and come back another day.

Went to tell the customer and as soon as she opened the door I struggled to speak, I suddenly went light headed a bit and started feeling sick, she panicked and got me to sit down and I thought it would pass, but it didn't and I started to feel really weird , like I was either going to pass out or be sick and my chest felt a bit tight, after about 10 minutes I wasn't getting any better and she had to ring 999 and get an ambulance. It was classed as an emergency and took an hour to arrive, in that time my fingers started to feel more normal and after that I started to recover and felt fine but tired when they arrived. Gave me an ECG check and all the usual checks and all was fine which is what I expected but had to be done to be on the safe side. They put it down to the cold and my body's reaction to my fingers, which is what I thought but I've never felt it like that before, usually they recover but I was getting worse despite being in the warmth.

So not the best day and another issue with my friggin fingers. Absolutely does my head in. Everything else I'm absolutely fine, if anything a little hot but my bloody fingers, doesn't matter which gloves I wear, not of them work when it's like anything below 3c.

I'm going to splash the cash and buy battery heated gloves, think it's the only thing I haven't tried and I cannot go on like this as I'll end up in a bad way if I'm not careful.

Oh, and 1 hour for an ambulance for an emergency ? god help anyone on deaths door around here ?

Now got to get a hot bath to try and remove all the ECG tabs stuck all over me without ripping all my hairs out ? feels like they're super glued on ?

Moral of the story, you have to do what's best for yourself. If you suffer from the cold you have to listen to your own body and decide for yourself what's ok to work in.

Hope you are feeling bettter soon , unfortunately ambulance waiting times are horrendous my eldest daughter is a paramedic and they are regularly taking 1-2 hours for cat 1 calls as the ambulance’s are queue up at the hospitals so none are available for emergency calls this has been going on for several years and is getting worse and worse sometimes the patients are in the ambulance outside A&E any ware from 6-27 hours !,,,,,,

 

[ched999uk]

Hope you are feeling better soon.
I have a pair of these usb heated gloves . You can remove the heated elements and put them in any gloves, might be a bit of a pain putting on or taking off but the heaters do work well. You will need a usb power bank to power them. I haven't used them for work, just used to use them when flying quadcopters in the winter.

 

[Chris34]

Hope you are feeling better soon.
I have a pair of these usb heated gloves . You can remove the heated elements and put them in any gloves, might be a bit of a pain putting on or taking off but the heaters do work well. You will need a usb power bank to power them. I haven't used them for work, just used to use them when flying quadcopters in the winter.

That's interesting, how do you find them for heating your hands? Is it a noticeable difference?

If they work then they're a lot cheaper than I was thinking and could probably be worn underneath a pair of Showa's. Not sure about where the battery could go but maybe a small one connected to a wrist strap and change them over during the day. If it works it would be well worth doing it.

 

[Chris34]

Hope you are feeling bettter soon , unfortunately ambulance waiting times are horrendous my eldest daughter is a paramedic and they are regularly taking 1-2 hours for cat 1 calls as the ambulance’s are queue up at the hospitals so none are available for emergency calls this has been going on for several years and is getting worse and worse sometimes the patients are in the ambulance outside A&E any ware from 6-27 hours !,,,,,,

That's well bad, I didn't realise how long you have to wait. Quite a concern if you're in a bad way...

 

[ched999uk]

That's interesting, how do you find them for heating your hands? Is it a noticeable difference?

If they work then they're a lot cheaper than I was thinking and could probably be worn underneath a pair of Showa's. Not sure about where the battery could go but maybe a small one connected to a wrist strap and change them over during the day. If it works it would be well worth doing it.

They did keep the back of my hands warm which helped with circulation, the more expensive ones will be better but might not be good for window cleaning. They have cables that go up your sleeves and down to a pocket where a usb power bank can be stored. Something like this 10,000mAh Power Bank £10 .
I also used to have a 12v dc set of glove liners when I used to ride a motorbike and they had elements that went up and down the back of my fingers and the back of my hand - they where good.

 

[Chris34]

They did keep the back of my hands warm which helped with circulation, the more expensive ones will be better but might not be good for window cleaning. They have cables that go up your sleeves and down to a pocket where a usb power bank can be stored. Something like this 10,000mAh Power Bank £10 .
I also used to have a 12v dc set of glove liners when I used to ride a motorbike and they had elements that went up and down the back of my fingers and the back of my hand - they where good.

Cheers for that Ched. Been looking for about the past hour or so... so much choice and it's hard to know what's best. Even the ones that are £250 get negative reviews about cold fingers... One thing I've come across though is glove liners. It's not something I've really thought over in my head about how it might work. I researched cold water diving as that probably most resembles the conditions we work in and they tend to have the same issues.

They seem to talk about having liner gloves but as with everything, there are different levels of liner gloves... anyway thin wool liner gloves seem to be the most recommended and they're not expensive... but anyway what got me thinking is that I have worn the fleece lined Showa gloves for the past 4 winters and although my fingers are bad well they are the best gloves I've found that stop me keeling over and dying ? ... but what I've just thought I've always worn nitriles underneath them. I've never given it a second thought but I've just wondered, could the nitriles be the problem?

When you wear nitriles and turn on a hot tap and put your hands under it, well you don't feel the hot water, you feel it warm but not hot, in water that would normally be too hot to touch well with nitriles on you can leave your hands there pretty much as long as you want. So this has got me thinking, if my hands are already cold and I've got the nitriles on, then putting the outer glove on might not make much of a difference? If you can't feel the heat from a hot tap then the possible warmth from an outer glove might not be felt in the same way?

My thinking is that maybe once a glove has a bit of warmth then it will keep some heat in the glove and your hands keep adding a bit of lost heat from your hands to the glove, this heat then helps keep your hands a certain warmth. But maybe with nitriles on, that heat isn't lost as such but when your body decides not to heat your fingers well the nitrile doesn't provide the return heat like the outer glove would do... in effect a nitrile glove is always cold to touch.

I've just booked a few window cleaning jobs in tomorrow to just see how I get on but I'm going to try not wearing the nitriles to see if it's anything like I've been experiencing, because what I'm experiencing just doesn't feel normal, I mean there's cold hands but this is just ridiculous. Not expecting miracles but I'm going to give it a try.

I've already got synthetic underliners but I'm also going to order some wool thermal underliners, a new pair of showa's and also keep researching the battery heated options.

 

[ched999uk]

I know you have probably thought of this but have you tried to get a doctors appointment to look as your circulation? My partner has cold hands, feet and a cold nose permanently and doesn't regulate her body temp very well, part of her problem stems from a medical condition where her blood is too thick. So it could be an underlying health condition that is causing you to get so cold.
The other thing is that I think if your bodies core temp is low it restricts the blood flow to your extremities. So keeping your body warm might help your fingers. I assume you have multiple layers of clothing on?

The nitrile gloves might be an issue but if they enable you to put your hands in hotter water that you would be able too with bare hands maybe they are holding heat in, but I think the way most clothing/gloves work is by trapping body heat in within the air pockets of their construction.

Best to just try multiple ideas and take it easy. Do you take a hot drink. There are also these type of hand warmers - £13 for 10 pairs which are a 1 use only but heat for about 10 to 12 hrs and stick onto the back of your hands but they don't need any power as the chemicals in them are air activated.

Stay warm mate.

 

[scottish cleaning service]

Hope you are feeling better soon.
I have a pair of these usb heated gloves . You can remove the heated elements and put them in any gloves, might be a bit of a pain putting on or taking off but the heaters do work well. You will need a usb power bank to power them. I haven't used them for work, just used to use them when flying quadcopters in the winter.

Good to know you are back to normal. I was just thinking about heated gloves the other day but I have hot water and just regularly change gloves for dry ones. It will be good to hear how you get on with them. ?

 

[THL4KEL]

If I was you I would sack off the nitrile and get some merino wool liners.

 

[scottish cleaning service]

If I was you I would sack off the nitrile and get some merino wool liners.

Bought a pair to try out, probably wear a pair of trutouch gloves over them.

 

[Chris34]

The nitrile gloves might be an issue but if they enable you to put your hands in hotter water that you would be able too with bare hands maybe they are holding heat in, but I think the way most clothing/gloves work is by trapping body heat in within the air pockets of their construction.

Best to just try multiple ideas and take it easy. Do you take a hot drink. There are also these type of hand warmers - £13 for 10 pairs which are a 1 use only but heat for about 10 to 12 hrs and stick onto the back of your hands but they don't need any power as the chemicals in them are air activated.

Stay warm mate.

I think with nitriles they're a bit like aluminium. Imagine the gloves being made of aluminium, well they wouldn't get warm and they wouldn't get cold, they would just stay the same as aluminium doesn't conduct heat, but I think this would be a problem when trying to keep something warm. When I think of buildings and how they are insulated, it's like you say, little pockets of air whether that be expanding foam, foam, air bricks, fibre roof foam liners, polystyrene it's all material that has air pockets, tiny air pockets. It must be these air pockets that trap a bulky layer of heat that helps keep the heat inside. Now imagine removing that type of insulation and just having an aluminium wall with aluminium roof, the room would be very cold and would need constant heat to have an temperature.

Now imagine using the same analogy but with nitriles on. Yes they don't conduct heat but there are no air pockets, so without a constant supply of heat it would feel cold. I'm thinking that this is maybe not the absolute solution to the problem... but I don't think it's helping. I think ditching the nitriles and going for wool liners would be a step in the right direction.

I don't take a flask with me but I do obviously get brews from customers. I don't tend to find it makes a difference, not a noticable one but the brews are welcomed, certainly makes my body warm but not the hands. My body is ok though, as are my feet. My feet used to suffer but I bought some SealSkin Thermal waterproof socks for £35 a few years ago and wear them over my usual socks. My toes can feel the cold a little bit but I have to be standing on hard frosty ground to properly start to feel it and even then it's not unbearable. Just my hands that have the problem. It's not Reynards or anything like that but I do have a lower blood pressure than average, not too low, they say it's a very healthy low but that might have something to do with it.

 

[Chris34]

If I was you I would sack off the nitrile and get some merino wool liners.

Yeah that's what I'm going to do, never heard of wool liners until I read the cold water diving forums, they all seem to recommend merino wool liners. Seems to be the same method as keeping the body warm, thin layers rather than one thick outer layer.

 

[THL4KEL]

I got these at the moment, no need to wear any extra socks, totally waterproof -

MEN'S WATERPROOF LEATHER HIGH TREKKING BOOTS - SALOMON QUEST 4 GTX

Maybe your getting arthritis in your hands?

I dont stop working once I start, if I stopped for brews, cold would start setting in. and it does me no favours. I eat on the move driving to jobs.

I try not to have long conversations with customers either...

 

[JohnDoeWindows]

I think most winter gloves are great for warmth, the problem is how long they last before they start to let water, cold in etc. With that in mind, and this might be ridiculous as you might not find any big enough - but what if you were to find a pair of somewhat thin, warm winter gloves and wear the nitrile gloves over the top of them? Hopefully keeping the heat in and also protecting your gloves

 

[Scots lad]

When I was trade I used magic gloves inside a pair of marigolds for dishwashing always had a few pair of each handy
Now don't wear any as have hot water and hose and pole heat

 

[scottish cleaning service]

When I was trade I used magic gloves inside a pair of marigolds for dishwashing always had a few pair of each handy
Now don't wear any as have hot water and hose and pole heat

You need it up in EK 700 feet above sea level.

 

[Mattymarske]

Yeah that's what I'm going to do, never heard of wool liners until I read the cold water diving forums, they all seem to recommend merino wool liners. Seems to be the same method as keeping the body warm, thin layers rather than one thick outer layer.

Funny you should have the funny turn you did yesterday, I had one pretty much the same time in the cold. I was standing talking with a customer and could feel myself about to pass out. It's happened before in the cold as well. I know when I get really cold I struggle to think and get words out too. Took me til about 9 o'clock to stop the dizzy horrible impending doom sensation even after I got warm.

Would be interesting if you find a solution. Happened to me in spring standing with a customer and went to drs next day for ECG said blood sugar fine and heart ok.

Took BP last night and was rather high. I've had adrenal issues that's caused high BP so always monitoring but may need tablets. I wonder if your Low BP crashes lower when you're cold like previous post said about blood viscosity.

See our lass not concerned one iota ??

 

[scottish cleaning service]

What happens in the first stage of hypothermia?


Symptoms of hypothermia

For mild hypothermia (35 to 32oC), signs and symptoms include: pale and cool to touch as blood vessels constrict in the skin. numbness in the extremities. sluggish responses, drowsiness or lethargic.

Does this make sense!

 

[Part Timer]

Funny you should have the funny turn you did yesterday, I had one pretty much the same time in the cold. I was standing talking with a customer and could feel myself about to pass out. It's happened before in the cold as well. I know when I get really cold I struggle to think and get words out too. Took me til about 9 o'clock to stop the dizzy horrible impending doom sensation even after I got warm.

Would be interesting if you find a solution. Happened to me in spring standing with a customer and went to drs next day for ECG said blood sugar fine and heart ok.

Took BP last night and was rather high. I've had adrenal issues that's caused high BP so always monitoring but may need tablets. I wonder if your Low BP crashes lower when you're cold like previous post said about blood viscosity.

See our lass not concerned one iota ??

That Diastolic number is a bit high to be fair, if you snore badly at night you might have sleep apnoea. If you have this will cause you hypertension as well

 

[Jaygti]

If I recall correctly, you wears shorts all year which is daft. You’ve got no chance of staying warm.

If your body is cold it restricts blood flow to your extremities, so your hands will never warm up. Likewise when it’s hot it does the opposite.

Gloves certainly help but are no substitute for being nice and warm all over.

Apologies if I’ve mixed you up with someone else.