How Addiction Happens

Question by Ace: Poor Circulation Symptoms? Diabetes? Stress? Tingling feet, cold hands, and weird skin colors?
Alright, so I’ve been looking up info on poor circulation and I need help. So my feet have tingling more often, just sitting down, or like crossing my legs. And I’ve notice than my hands are colder more often too. My skin on my arms also goes purple and orange when I’m cold and sometimes randomly, but it’s been like that for as long as I can remember. I’m 5’9″ and 157lbs, and just turned 18. I used to be really fat, but lost the weight a couple years ago after increased exercise, and am still somehow losing weight. I eat pretty good for a college student, maybe a little junk here and there, but still pretty good. I used to exercise more, but now I work out only once a week, and maybe do some cardio like once a week too.

I thought I might have diabetes cause my grandpa had it and I noticed I was peeing a lot one day, so I kept track the next day and I was like peeing every hour, but I was really nervous and was pretty much sitting there waiting to pee again. The next day I forgot about it and peed a lot less, so I don’t think it’s that. I also wasn’t that thirsty and I was tired, but I was running on like 4 hours of sleep so it could’ve been that.

I’ve also found that stress can cause tingling and college has been stressing me A LOT lately so maybe it’s just that. I asked my doctor about my skin awhile back, and she said it’s probably just dry so she had me put on some cream and it helped a little bit, but it made my arms all sticky so I stopped using it because I didn’t even care that my arms were weird colors cause they weren’t itchy or anything.

So I’m not sure what I have, or if I even have anything at all. Whenever I think that I could have diabetes or something I start to freak out and it seems like I have more and more symptoms, but I could just be making them up because I’m nervous. If it is something do you think exercise and eating better could fix it alone? I always feel great after exercising, and I’ve just started to notice most of these things recently, after I’ve been spending more time in the library than in the gym. I really hate going to the doctor, so maybe I could try being healthier and see if things get better? If I do have diabetes or poor circulation could it kill me even if I’m young and healthier? I’m still 18 so I think if I’m healthier then the problems might go away. So any advice would be appreciated, thanks! 🙂

[And don’t just say go see the doctor, how bout a self evaluation or something?]

Best answer:

Answer by Nick N
Well Offspring, the reason I would recomend you see a doctor is that your symptoms can be prescribed to a wide variety of conditions that span the spectrum of severity. You will need a metabolic panel done, as well as a glucose tolerance test. If this has been happening “as long as you remember” I’m inclined to think the condition might be genetic rather than environmental. I also believe this hypothesis is supported by your claim that the symptoms have remained constant through changes you’ve made to your lifestyle. If the symptoms are systemic, hypovolemia from dehydration, Raynaud’s syndrome, or nicotine addiction. There are hundreds of other conditions that have these symptoms (ie, peripheral vasular disease, limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis, etc.), but they are characterized by other, more severe symptoms. This is why you need ancillary studies; there’s only so much a limited patient history can tell us.

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