What's Phenomenal about Raynaud's Phenomenon?

It's winter, it's cold and that means people with autoimmune conditions can have an increase in symptoms, like joint pain, arthritis inflammation and raynaud's syndrome to name a few.
Raynauds is when small arteries that provide blood to your skin, narrow. This can cause trouble in circulation. In some people, it can turn your fingertips blue, purple or even white. Raynaud's can be minor-like in mine (pic) or so complicated it can cause amputations to be needed.
Raynaud's is more than cold hands-it can be very difficult to get your hands or feet to warm up after a flare. Preventative care is to layer up in clothes and wear nice warm socks and gloves.
Treatment according to Mayo.com:
Medications
Depending on the cause of your symptoms, medications may help treat Raynaud's. To widen (dilate) blood vessels and promote circulation, your doctor may prescribe:
Calcium channel blockers. These drugs relax and open up small blood vessels in your hands and feet. They decrease the frequency and severity of attacks in most people with Raynaud's. These drugs can also help heal skin ulcers on your fingers or toes. Examples include nifedipine (Adalat CC, Afeditab CR, Procardia), amlodipine (Norvasc) and felodipine (Plendil).
Alpha blockers. Some people find relief with drugs called alpha blockers, which counteract the actions of norepinephrine, a hormone that constricts blood vessels. Examples include prazosin (Minipress) and doxazosin (Cardura).
Vasodilators. Some doctors prescribe a vasodilator — a drug that relaxes blood vessels — such as nitroglycerin cream to your fingers to help heal skin ulcers. Your doctor may also prescribe vasodilator drugs that are commonly used to treat other conditions, but may effectively relieve the symptoms of Raynaud's. These drugs include the high blood pressure drug losartan (Cozaar), the erectile dysfunction medication sildenafil (Viagra, Revatio), the antidepressant medication fluoxetine (Prozac, Sarafem), and a class of medication called prostaglandins.

Learning to move on from where I am and not from where I was!

I couldn’t pick up where I left off before my last bout with the sun and sun caused illness.
Slowly moving in and out of social networks, commenting, reading emails, making and keeping doctor appointments, getting out and all in all joining in my own life as a contributor and not a spectator takes all my energy and thought processes.  Catching up is too hard so I’m learning to just move on, click the like button on fb on new posts and put recent sicknesses that stopped me in their tracks behind me.  This will be my only mention of it and I’m keeping it light.

I had what they called a hypersensitive vasculitis facial attack from the sun (UV).  I wasn’t just down for the count, I was blasted into an oblivion of pain like even I haven’t experienced in quite a long time. My face and arm itched from the inside and burned as if my blood was boiling from the inside.  After the hives disappeared and the bleeding stopped my face on and under my lupus malar rash became HOT and SWOLLEN.  I looked like someone punched me.  My nerves and every layer of skin were on fire.  I went 3 days until it dissipated enough with steroids that I could talk without searing pain.  A tonage of anti-inflammatories and 60mg of the dreaded prednisone later the swelling went down and the burning under my skin subsided.  I NEVER EVER AGAIN want to go through this.  I’m guessing the appearance of the newly summerized hot Arizona sun and UV in the danger levels precipitated the attack.  Right now I think I’d like to just stay inside the rest of my life.  But I won’t.  Who would?

Here’s a little info on hypersensitive vasculitis from medscape.com:

Hypersensitivity vasculitis, which is usually represented histopathologically as leukocytoclastic vasculitis, is a term commonly used to denote a small vessel vasculitis. Many possible causes or associations exist for hypersensitivity vasculitis, but a cause or an associated disorder is not found in as many as 50% of patients.
Hypersensitivity vasculitis (a form of small vessel vasculitis) may manifest clinically as cutaneous disease only or it may manifest as skin disease with involvement of other organs. The internal organs most commonly affected in hypersensitivity vasculitis are the joints, gastrointestinal tract, and the kidneys. The prognosis for hypersensitivity vasculitis is good when no internal involvement is clinically present. Hypersensitivity vasculitis may be acute and self-limited, recurrent or chronic.

Patients with hypersensitivity vasculitis of their skin may report itching, a burning sensation, or pain, or they may have asymptomatic lesions. Vasculitis of the skin may occur in the absence of any detectable systemic disease. Vasculitis may occur in conjunction with collagen-vascular disorders, paraproteinemia, ingestants (drugs or foods), infections, or malignancy (rare).

I’m prone to severe sun reactions, pemphigoid rashes, porphyric reactions, discoid rashes, hives, necrotizing lesions, livedo reticularis, small spot vasculitis, reynauds, but this is something different.  This is cellular pain (like cellulitis) that effects you down to the core.  It’s horrific.  I assure you this autoimmune reaction is not a sunburn.  I wish it was.  Boy do I.

My body is recovering.  My mind is fine.  I’m not picking up where I left off anymore.  I’m moving on.  Life is too short and too precious.  HUGS!