Raynaud’s Attacks Can Strike Anytime. Be Ready.

I knew it was too cold in my dentist’s office the second I walked through the door. 

Ugh, my fingers aren’t going to last long, I gulped. 

I have such a bad case of Raynaud’s syndrome that my family moved to Hawaii so I could escape the white-finger attacks, but even here I’m not safe. Grocery stores, my favorite sushi restaurant, and seemingly every one of my medical providers love to crank up their AC until the temperature is in the high – mid?? – 60s. Brrrrrrrr.

Usually I have my Toasty Touch gloves on hand, batteries fully charged, so I can keep my fingers “turned on” so not even the Ben and Jerry’s section can slow me down. The Beatles said “Happiness is a warm gun.” Well, I think happiness is warm gloves. 

Unfortunately, on this day, I simply forgot. As I took my seat in the waiting room, I could already feel my fingertips going numb. 

Should I bail? I wondered. No! I waited two months for this appointment. I’ve got this. How long could it possibly take? Not more than an hour, right?

Turns out I’ve got the most thorough dentist ever. X-ray after x-ray ensued. The kind where you place your chin on the little platform and the machine circles your head. The kind where you hold plastic in your mouth at various angles. 

More than 2 hours later, the appointment was finally wrapping up. Throughout, I rubbed my hands together, pressed my fingertips as hard as I could into my palms, and sat on my hands. None of it reheated my fingers. I needed heat. Delicious, scrumptious, mouth-wateringly divine heat. 

At one point I showed the dentist my fingers and told him his office was very cold. 

“Yeah we like it like that,” he said. 

A week later, my wife had an appointment at a different dentist. He asked what she does for a living, and she said she owns a company that makes heated gloves for people with Raynaud’s. 

“I have Raynaud’s!” he told her. “That’s why I moved to Hawaii!”

I’m switching dentists. 

And never again leaving my house without my Toasty Touch Ultra Thin Heated Gloves.