I never used to feel the cold much. I was usually the one who was warm and would be stripping off! Considering I used to teach outdoor sports in all weathers, I would rarely have cold feet. Unless I was having to jump off heights - but that’s a different kind of cold feet!

It’s only since I have been on Warfarin that I get such cold hands and feet. And I mean really cold.  Sometimes so cold it can almost be painful.  I know we have had a rotten summer here in Scotland this year but I am still wearing my warm gloves when I take the dog for his early morning walk.

I even bought a new thermal top yesterday… it’s the beginning of August aaaghhhhh!

I never got this cold when I was on the anticoagulant, Clopidogrel. Perhaps it was because I was only on that for a few months and it was in the summer – we had a proper summer then with plenty of sun instead of the rain that seems to be this year’s theme.

The cold feet definitely seem to be worse when I am lying down. In bed, or at Pilates class.  In fact it got so bad that my Pilates Instructor advised me to get one of those big slippers to keep me warm at the end of the session when we relax and cool down.  So I bought Horace (I thought he was a hippo so I named him Horace the Hippo, but everyone said he was actually a sheep!).  So now I have Horace the Sheep….. it doesn’t really roll off the tongue in quite the same way but he is really cute!  Ha! And you thought I was going to have a big tartan slipper.warfarin and cold feet

Horace stays at the Pilates studio so I can put him on during the session if I have really cold feet. It depends on the exercises but I particularly need him for the relaxation at the end.

However, when I was having a session of Bowen Therapy to get my sore back sorted recently everything changed. Jane Henderson, who owns the Pilates Studio, decided she would also incorporate a Bowen technique which might warm my feet up.  I couldn’t believe it, a technique that would warm up my feet.  This Bowen stuff is really amazing but that’s just blown me out of the water.

And…

Eureka, it worked. Poor Horace may have to retire if my feet stay warm like this.  Now it’s just cold hands I have got to worry about.  Will ask Jane if she has any magic for that too.  I’m not sure how it all works but I found it absolutely amazing that there is a technique which can help me keep warm and combat one of the side effects of Warfarin.