Surprising Ways to Stay Warm and Safe

Valerie Paxton, Allegra Medical

My friends tease me about my cold hands and feet. I mean, they are sooooo cold! I’ve tried all kinds of things to warm up (even moving from Nebraska to Arizona) but I just seem to run a few degrees south of normal. Yeah, ‘boo hoo’, I know, it’s 70 degrees here in January and I’m complaining.

But no matter where you are in the world, kicking back in your recliner at home or rippin’ gnar pow on your shred sled in Snow Mass, there are products you may have never imagined, designed to keep you warm and safe in the cold.

Check these out:

Energy Efficient Heaters for Home or Work

Toasty Toes Personal Heater - Deluxe Ergonomic Footrest - use sitting or standing anywhere, anytime. Adjustable angles. Never too hot to touch!

Electric Foot Wamer Mat - great for work! Fits easily under your desk. Waterproof. Quickly dries wet socks, shoes or boots, leaving you dry and warm.

Cozy-Legs Personal Heater - Under Desk Leg Warmer - Mounts to your desk, wall or optional stand. Keeps your legs toasty.

Bed Buddy Heat Therapy Kit - Comes with a sinus pack, hand warmers and foot warmers. Lightly fragranced with eucalyptus, clove and cinnamon. You can buy everything separately. Bed Buddy Back Wrap. All can be used hot or cold. See all Bed Buddy products.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Dream Sack Airline Comfort Set - As seen on the Today Show, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Everything you need to stay warm and cozy on the plane, train, bus or car (no driving with your eye shades on!). Includes a silk blanket, pillowcase, eye shades and a 12? storage bag. All totaled, weighs less than a pound.

Dream Sack Luxury Travel Kit - You’ll be stylin’ in first class no matter where you’re sitting. Great for your flight or in your hotel room. Includes a silk/cashmere blanket, charmeuse silk eyeshades and an outer bag that reverses to a pillowcase.

Outdoors

Cane Ice Grip - Prevents canes and crutches from slipping on icy and snowy surfaces. Don’t risk a fall! Get one of these. It’s only like, $7 bucks and it could save your life or the life of a loved one. I’m serious. Don’t make me come over there.

Ice-Away Snow and Ice Melt Pad - Much less expensive than embedded systems, this pad prevents show and ice from accumulating outside your door, or wherever you put it. Line your entire sidewalk! Great for home doorway entrances, wheelchair ramps, handicap-accessible structures, loading docks, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, schools or churches. 36? x 32?. Plugs into a standard outlet.

IronClad Cold Condition Glove - Cold weather gloves for workers who need a high level of dexterity. Wicks away perspiration, breathable, water and oil resistant, non-slip rubber, machine washable.

Grabber Foot Wamers - 5 hours of air-activated warmth. Case of 30 packs, 2 warmers per pack. Put them in your shoes or boots, use one time and then throw away. These are standard equipment for skiers, snowboarders, hunters, campers, hikers, bird watchers or anyone who likes to do stuff outdoors in the cold. Also great for Arthritis, Raynaud’s, Lupus, Scleroderma, Sjogren’s, Myalgia or just poor circulation.

Grabber Peel-n-Stick Adhesive Body Warmer - Box of 40. A portable heating pad that you wear! Works for 12+ hours. Use for minor aches & pains or for warmth outdoors during sporting activities.

Grabber Hand Warmer - Pack of 40, with 2 per pack. These keep your hands and fingers toasty for more than 10 hours. Just open the packet and put the warmers in your gloves or pocket and they start working in a few minutes. No shaking or kneading required.

Emergency Rescue Blanket - another inexpensive way to save your life. This lightweight blanket should be in every cold-weather car and every backwoods backpack. It was invented for NASA and is used by militaries, search and rescue, and relief agencies worldwide.

I hope you stay warm and toasty until it’s time to stay cool and frosty. I’ll be back in a few months with AllegroMedical.com products to help you chill. You know I will.

Talk to the hand

from Financial Mail

Hand pain and strain are at a record high because of the time we now spend in front of a computer. But there is much we can do to avoid surgery, writes Sue Grant-Marshall

Robbers shout "hands up" in a hold-up for a reason. That's the part of your body you use first in any crisis situation, in this case reaching for your own gun, pepper spray or the panic button. When you trip, your hands shoot out instinctively to cushion the fall. If you're hijacked, it's your right hand you raise protectively. In spite of their obvious importance, it's extraordinary how little attention we pay to our hands. One of SA's few hand therapists, Nicola Fellowes, describes them as the most functionally important and bio mechanically complex part of our body.


Our hands are, literally, an extension of the brain, more of which is reserved for hand movement than for control of any other part of the body. Today, they are being subjected to increasing strain, due to our computer use, as more of us sit for hours on end, only twitching our mouse hand. Using a mouse is, for many compromised people (diabetics, anyone aged over 40), the last straw. That twisting motion as you manoeuvre it from side to side on your mousepad can spell disaster if you don't heed warning signs.


Conditions ranging from trigger finger to tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome could be around the corner unless you recognise hand strain symptoms. Carpal tunnel syndrome usually manifests in numbness or tingling in your hand, which may sometimes wake you up at night. You might experience clumsiness in handling objects or feel a pain that goes up the arm as high as your shoulder.


The symptoms occur when your median nerve, which travels from your forearm into your hand through a "tunnel" in your wrist, presses against a ligament as a result of swelling or inflammation. Carpal tunnel syndrome is common among those who use their hands for extended periods, for instance in computer data capture, writing reports, in journalism, or in textile manufacturing, upholstering or assembly-line work.


Cubital tunnel syndrome or inflammation of your funny bone is caused by your ulnar nerve being trapped at the elbow because you lean on it too often on a hard surface. You may feel tingling in your little finger or weakness in your hand. These symptoms may wake you at night.


Trigger finger or thumb is a form of tendonitis and can be caused by repeatedly grasping something. When a swollen tendon can't slide through its tendon sheath, it locks, hence the term. You feel a catching sensation and your finger or thumb remain bent. There is a range of treatments that a hand therapist can use when pain finally drives you to seek help. Hand therapists, like Fellowes, can minimise symptoms in various ways such as putting splints on your finger, thumb or wrist to prevent you flexing them.


Anti-inflammatory medication is used, too, either orally or by injecting cortisone into the painful area. But many people leave it too late and surgery becomes the only option. "People in the workplace are far more aware now of conditions like repetitive strain injury, which can cause trigger fingers or thumb," says Fellowes, who is increasingly seeing data capturers suffering from those conditions and simultaneously from tennis elbow. Some are only in their late 20s.


If a therapist sees a patient early on then she can intervene with treatment. "But so often people let their condition get so bad that their rehabilitation time is much longer," says Fellowes. Though in America patients can claim under the Workman's Compensation Act for computer strain, "we are not able to get coverage for white collar workers in SA," says Fellowes. "This is because [cases] are so difficult to prove."


Fellowes is increasingly seeing dentists, surgeons, physiotherapists, podiatrists and occupational therapists whose hands cannot cope with the demands their owners put on them. Sport, particularly golf and cycling, brings people in their droves to her rooms. The repeated wrist action in golf can cause a condition called lateral epicondylitis.


Cyclists are prone to nerve entrapments like carpal tunnel syndrome because of the position of their upper limbs (arms and shoulders) on the bike for long periods. Inflammation caused by jarring and vibration is a problem, too. People go for an X-ray and are often sent home though they have a wrist sprain which hasn't been diagnosed. Three months later, they are still in pain because conventional X-rays often don't show up wrist sprains.


Fellowes did gunshot research at three Johannesburg hospitals before doing her fellowship at Texas in America and stunned her fellow students over there with her research sample. "Nobody there had seen gunshot wounds." She also sees people who've been attacked for their rings, "with bites on their fingers, which are sometimes dislocated or broken in the process. They go horribly septic as human bites are far worse than those of animals."