Do I Need to See Rheumatology Doctor if I Have Raynaud’s Phenomenon





Do I Need to See Rheumatology Doctor if I Have Raynaud’s Phenomenon

   Weather is getting colder and colder, doctors find more patients whose hands would turn white and then turn red or porphyreus when they meet cold air or cold water. In thus conditions, do patients need to see a doctor, especially a rheumatology doctor?
 Indeed, this symptom is called Raynaud’s Phenomenon, which gained the name because Doctor Raynaud found it earliest. Certainly, this phenomenon doesn’t occur on hands only. It can involve feet and skin of other parts, while hands are the most common parts. If this kind of symptoms occurs on your body, please pay great attention to it which is reminder of abnormity in the body, instead of a normal physiological reaction.
Usually, this is the early reminder of some serious disease, such as lupus erythematosus, sicca syndrome, dermatomyositis, systemic sclerosis and so on. What is the cause of Raynaud’s Phenomenon? Modern medicine believes that some factors in body cause the inflammation of minute vessels, leading to vasospasm and even lumen stenosis. In normal conditions, vessels can maintain certain blood flow to guarantee blood supply of tissues, so there will no any abnormal sysmptoms. When patients in cold air or water, the vessels will shrink, causing in blood short supply of the surrounding tissues, and then the skin will turn white. After a long time, the blood short supply will aggravate, and then skin will turn purple or red. Besides, most disease with vasculitis is immune disease, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, sicca syndrome, dermatomysitis, microscopic polyangiitis and so on.
So what the patients should do when Raynaud’s Phenomenon occurs?　First, you need to pay enough attention to this symptom. As previously mentioned, some people have this symptom only in winter, so they thought it was chilblain and didn’t pay enough attention to. For some cases, it will progress into classic rheumatic autoimmune disease years later. Second, you should not be scared. Because Raynaud’s Phenomenon is the early symptom of many diseases, the disease can be diagnosed or treated timely if you can see a specialist positively. Third, you need to go to see a rheumatology doctor as early as possible. As it is the early reminder of rheumatic autoimmune disease, patients can be diagnosed exactly and treated properly.