Heat the human

terrie_rae

I am disabled, immobile & have peripheral artery disease. I have problems keeping warm in summer let alone winter. I am constantly wrapped yet still cannot retain heat. My hit water or beat never goes on I was paying standing charges oy on gas for the past 13yrs. My heating went on only when others complained for an hour every 4-5 days but never made a difference. I have neyrogical illnesses which affect all muscles causing spasticity and full body spasms and tremor lasting hours constant pain. 
I do all of these things and not just now for 15yrs I have not placed heating on. Any suggestions? 

Northern_Wanderer

I am also a cold person, even in summer now sitting with two fleece jumpers and two pairs of socks, and still need a blanket when sitting. Getting frustrated as I want to put heating on on no-sun days but refraining from it due to cost.

Good tips to heat the human are eating warming foods/ hot meals/ hot drinks. Ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, turmeric can create warmth in the body. Hot teas. Avoid cooling foods. Maybe have a google search on warming/ cooling foods?

I have a cherry stone bag that heats in microwave and retains heat for ages. That is my go to item, best purchase ever made. Wear a hat. Soak feet in hot water. Leg warmers. A foot mat to create insulation between you and the floor.

Apparently hypothyroidism can cause coldness in body, so maybe worth investigating.

EssexHebridean

OP the good news is by the sound of it you should be eligible for some of the financial assistance being given to households this year in addition to the £400 energy grant. Have you investigated that? It sounds as though you could be harming your health by not keeping yourself as warm as you possibly can, so hopefully that will enable you to make at least some use of heating. 

Do you have things like heated throws to use? Wearing a hat is good advice, also. 

Spoonie_Turtle

I run cold, have done ever since getting a glandular fever-type virus in my teens.  The only thing that's properly worked is having central heating and having it on (not baking hot, but it's set at 18℃ and sometimes during an especially cold snap we'll put it up a degree or two for a couple of hours as a sort of 'boost').

I've done all the layering, hot water bottles, all the tricks (it became a standing joke between friends how many layers I was wearing - some winters I put newspaper in my boots it off desperation), and heating the environment is the only thing that made life significantly better.  I know it's not what you want to hear but as you've found, heating the human only works to an extent.

One non-heating thing that did help enough worth mentioning was finding fluffy, fleecy pyjamas which help insulate better than flat clothes; wearing 3 layers of those is about as effective as 5-6 layers of 'normal' clothing.  Knee-high socks also useful.  Blankets etc. great for night, help keep the bed warm, but useless once I needed to get up out of the warm bed.  Moving around with a blanket tied round me was more tiring and didn't keep everywhere warm.

I know keeping the house warm costs money, but if you can at all afford it, the improvement to quality of life will absolutely be worth it.  I would never willingly choose to go back to how things were without being cold, and I only have a very feeble body not spasms and tremors like you have.

markin

Out of interest how much cooler are you from the normal (36.1°C) to (37.2°C)   ?

Alnat1

I'm nesh (lovely Yorkshire word that simply means always feels cold) too, especially hands and feet, probably to do with my underactive thyroid condition although it's well controlled. 

If I take my temperature it's usually at the lower end of normal but nothing really low.

In winter I use a "snuggy" in the evenings which is a blanket with sleeves. You're supposed to put it on top of you and shove your arms through the sleeves but I wear it the other way, like an enormous dressing gown. Top part can be pulled up around your head. It's fine to walk around in (kids used to call me Darth Vader) if you want a cuppa.