Category Archives: Raynaud’s Syndrome

It’s scary how much time I end up spending thinking about some things since my RA diagnosis. I know that, along with my RA came Raynauds as a secondary condition and that is a huge contributing factor to the fact that my fingers and toes are always cold. But it still strikes me as odd to think so much about socks.

When they clearance the winter stuff and the “spring line” starts to come out at the stores, I always go looking for wool socks. I don’t just wear them in winter. I sometimes wear the pretty socks or the business socks in my drawer, but I’ve fortunately acquired enough wool socks in enough colors that I can rely on them to get me through on days when I know I’m feeling cold. And AC can make my feet and fingers freezing so it is as many days as not.

I recently discovered wool and silk blends and got a couple pairs of them that I absolutely love. They are soft and warm and stay up! Staying up is a problem I always have when I buy the 6 or 8 or 10 packs of athletic socks at WalMart. After a couple washings they start to fall down around my ankles, and they are knee socks or at least over the calf socks. I hate the feeling of them slid down. And that feeling is so not like just buying and wearing ankle socks. It just feels wrong.

This morning I put on the no slip hospital socks that bear got when he had his colonoscopy. They didn’t actually make him put them on and he wasn’t going to bring them home because they are just funky. No slip grippy stuff all the way around and tube socks. They are pukey brown and have an idiot smiley face staring out of two opposing sides. Who thought these up? Because having your feet smiling up at you when you are in the hospital is going to make you feel so much better? But socks are socks and they came home with me. And this morning they are keeping the chilly off my feet.

Who thought up putting registers on the wall to blow on your feet? In the summer, the AC is just too cold on your feet, and in the winter you want to be warm all over not just on the floor. I know I know, hot air rises, but it still feels counter intuitive. I was raised in a house with a coal furnace. Registers go in the floor blowing straight up… all the better to dry your hair in five minutes first thing on a snowy morning!

But I digress…

If you tend to have cold extremities, you know how important it is to find the warm. I love my Injinis toe socks especially in my Vibrams five fingers shoes (Go Hobbit Feet!!!) and the wool toe socks that I bought last fall are still holding up remarkably well. No holes. Still going warm.

I don’t understand why the 6-8-10 pairs that you get at back to school time don’t hold up any better than they do. I mean, I get planned obsolescence, but geeze… it just makes me want to not buy them at all.

I get that socks are a fashion statement and everything.  And I get that companies have to make money.  But I would far and away rather buy something that is going to keep me warm (which I think is what they are supposed to do anyway) and hold up without my having to add in elastic later than to just buy the cutsey or the garbage.

I can’t wait till gloves start showing up at the store (any day now). Since texting has become a big deal for everyone, and the gloves to facilitate have too, I can now use gloves with fingers all day long on my laptop! Technology is starting to catch up with what I’ve needed for years.

I wonder what colors this season brings!