Hello one and all,
My husband is a soon to be 39 year old, who has smoked for many many
years! About 2 weeks ago he came to me describing "alot of pain in
his hands". I listened, but chalked it off to...."TO MUCH WORK and
NOT enough play"! Well, he began telling me about this "pain" EVERY
morning before he left to work, he told me his fingers were real
cold, and turning blue. My concern grew, but I figured he possibly
had just "pinched a nerve" or something. Until the other night, when
he reached out and touched my face with one of the fingers in
question! I about yelled out in surprise when it caught me off guard!
His finger was SOOOOO cold! the rest of his hand was nice and warm,
but he had 2 fingers on his left hand and 3 fingers on his right hand
that were FROZEN!! He told me the pain was unbarable, and that it was
waking him up at night! I remembered he had told me that his fingers
were turning blue, but when I looked at his fingers, they were
BLACK!! and only the tips of the fingers!! Well, tonight I barely
touched his hand to see how he was doing and he responded like I hit
his hand with a hammer! He has splotches on his fingers that turn to
a solid black tip and he keeps his hands under a heating pad. I got
onto the computer to see if I could "find anything" with his
symptoms, and I found this web site....Now I am scared! Does anyone
think that what I am describing could be "Beurger's Disease"?? Can
anyone offer me more symptoms to look out for? We currently do NOT
have health insurance, and we can't afford to go to the
hospital...BUT...if this is dangerous and one of you thinks that my
husband taking aspirin and doing everythin possible to maintain some
circulation is NOT enough, then we will go to the hospital and write
a rubber check!! or have them bill us (for lack of a better
description) I told him he needed to stop smoking immediately, but he
seems to keep TRYING to tell me it is something else, like an injury
etc..... I will take all the help you have to offer, and I thank you
in advance for your help !!!

Thank you!!
Kyna