Chilblains and chilly toes

​Chilblains

Have you ever heard of chilblains? Most of you probably haven’t, like myself. This winter my lovely wonderful body decided to throw yet another curveball at me.

Our winters are odd, though thankfully we do have winter in its wonderfulness. I love winter. My body however does not love the cold. When it gets cold I do my best to bundle before cranking the heat up. Let’s face it, that winter power bill can hurt when it comes in. Socks and slippers are a must. And why not? I have cute slippers. I got a painful blister on the tip of one of my toes that wouldn’t go away, my logical thought was that it was being caused by the seam in the toe of my favorite slippers so I stopped wearing them. Then I got another blister on another toe so I thought maybe it was happening because of constantly wearing socks or slippers.

My friends invited us to join them watching the Parade of Lights. It was cold, like just above freezing temperatures, standing outside for a little over an hour. By the end of the really neat parade my feet were frozen despite wearing wool socks and rain boots. Later that night when I took off my socks I was shocked at my toes! They were covered in these painful blisters. My husband said they were scabies, which thankfully I refused to believe, so I started doing my own research.

Chilblains. Painful blisters caused by poor circulation or nerve damage. They can affect fingers and toes. They were common among infantrymen during the wars and often recur every year during the winter. The good news is that they do heal themselves usually. Mine did.