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Why did people rub snow on frozen feet? (2017)
- DiscourseFan 2y agoYeah but clearly people wouldn’tve been doing it if it hadn’t worked, so what is the reason for trying that specific traditional method?
- unclad5968 2y agoThe only thing I can find is that heating too fast might cause gangrene.
- bqmjjx0kac 2y ago> people wouldn’tve been doing it if it hadn’t worked That's a bold claim!
- krisoft 2y agoYeah. Maybe someone who got rubbed with snow got randomly better completely unrelated to the treatment and then superstition run wild with that coincidence. Or maybe people understood initially that you should do the rubbing next to a fire. And then the rubbing only has positive efect because it lets the person administering it feel when the heat is too much, and naturally adjusts the distance to prevent burns or injury from too fast warming up. Or maybe someone told people to do it because they thought it might help and never bothered to check if it does anything or not. Or maybe people did know it does nothing but there was no other option and doing something about the injury felt better than doing nothing. Maybe it was doing mechanically nothing but the care and personal touch had a beneficial effect due to placebo. Maybe it made the injury worse, thus more likely that they amputated and paradoxically that saved the injured from worse outcomes like gangrene. There is so many other possibility than “if they did it it must have worked”. Who knows.
- norgie 2y agoThis was addressed in the accepted answer: > rapid rewarming from open campfires or other sources of dry heat caused so much devastation.....Dry heat from ....open fires....cannot be controlled. Excessively high temperatures are usually produced, resulting in a combined burn and frostbite, a devasting injury that leads to far greater tissue loss. Sounds like it was an overreaction to applying excessive heat to the frostbitten tissue.
- DiscourseFan 2y agoNo it was a full alternative to it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hiatus 2y ago> Yeah but clearly people wouldn’tve been doing it if it hadn’t worked Like bloodletting, leeches, lobotomies...
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoOddly, electroconvulsive therapy seemes to have panned out.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoElectroconvulsive therapy is about as effective as bloodletting. There are conditions for which bloodletting is an effective treatment, such as iron overload. But in most people, and under most circumstances, losing meaningful quantities of blood leads to long-term injury and/or death. Likewise, electrocuting the nervous system often causes permanent disability and/or death, and is a fairly effective torture method. Lobotomy, too, can be an effective treatment for epilepsy. But I'm sure we can all agree that certain people in the past were way too quick to resort to it. (The Soviet Union banned it in the 1950s, on human rights grounds.) Likewise, I'm rather worried by the high incidence of involuntary (read: forced, non-consensual) electroconvulsive therapy. 10% is way too high, and I've seen numbers higher than that…
- toast0 2y ago(Clean) leeches are actually pretty handy sometimes. Bloodletting is standard of care for hemochromotosis; you can use leeches for that, but just drawing blood is probably more efficient; some blood banks will let you donate it, some say no because the donation isn't supposed to be of benefit to the donor. Certainly, a lot of conditions where bloodletting was used don't warrant it, but it's not altogther bad. I don't think there's a good use case for a lobotomy, though.
- robbiep 2y agoWithout being overly condescending, you do realise that most of the things that have been done throughout history, along with many we still do, are the result of cultural practice and have no evidence base whatsoever? Whilst 1956 seems to be a fairly late date to stop what would seem in the surface to be a counter intuitive practice, 80 years earlier blood letting was still in vogue
- exe34 2y agopeople still pray to personal gods to this day, expecting them to prioritise their petty little lives while others are suffering/dying of things that could be trivially solved with a bit of knowledge and technology.
- tharkun__ 2y agoAnd people "manifest" and somehow don't wonder why randomly "it works" or "doesn't work". "Must've done something wrong while manifesting this time :shrug:" :facepalm: !!!!!1111eleven
- DiscourseFan 2y agoHaving the confidence to believe that you are able to do something almost certainly makes it more likely that you'll do it. Its bullshit but it probably works unless its for basically impossible things. You can manifest a promotion if you believe in yourself and work hard (and have an idea that your boss maybe likes you). People are also not so bad at predicting things, you aren't going to manifest something that you have no hope is actually going to happen. But of course with something like a lottery ticket its stupid.
- tharkun__ 2y agoOh I'm all for people having confidence in themselves. That's what religion is all about (except for the population control aspect). If someone uses religion (or manifesting) to go down the path of "god helps those that help themselves", all the power to them! (as long as they don't make me believe in it) I really am talking about people like that one radio moderator I was thinking of when making the comment: was "manifesting" all day yesterday so that someone would win the x-thousand dollars in the contest on their show this morning. Was "manifesting" getting tickets for Taylor Swif as well recently. Stuff like that. Like you said, all just manifesting "lottery ticket" type stuff. Magical thinking basically. Just "sit around and manifest and it'll happen". That's the :facepalm: stuff.
- riccardomc 2y agoClearly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproven_methods_against_COVID-19 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproven_methods_aga...
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> people wouldn’tve been doing it if it hadn’t worked Now do trepanation and corpse medicine. Like, look around you. We’re a stupid species. Not consistently. But a lot. We’ve always been a bunch of apes banging around.
- DiscourseFan 2y agoI don't think its smart to act like we are somehow at the pinnacle of human knowledge and nothing we've done before can be more effective than what we know works now.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> don't think its smart to act like we are somehow at the pinnacle of human knowledge and nothing we've done before can be more effective than what we know works now Sure. Population growth is exponential. Deifying ancient knowledge is over-attributing knowledge to when we had little in both knowledge per person and persons per se. Sanctifying traditional medicine means you’re out of ideas. You aren’t bad. But move on.
- DiscourseFan 2y agoSee my above comment
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoStill deifying traditional practice. Trepanation doesn’t do anything for seizures. Was commonly prescribed for them. We stopped doing that after discovering what caused them. The list goes on and on.
- aaron695 2y ago[flagged]
- incognito124 2y agoI've experienced rapid warming of hands when handling snow without gloves. Maybe it's the same mechanism?
- DidYaWipe 2y agoAfter handling snow I've noticed this too. My hands are often cold by default, but if I handle snow it's as if the coldness crosses some threshold and your body says, OK, that's over the line! We're sending help!
- pablobaz 2y agoWhat you are seeing is probably cold induced vasodilation https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4843861/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4843861/ Incidentally there are some studies that show you get better at it with more frequent exposure. I have kayaked for many years and have found this to be the case - if my hands get cold now, dipping them into the water to further cool then hence opening the veins is very effective if counterintuitive way of warming my hands up.
- sdwr 2y agoI believe the logic is to heat gently through friction, and to promote blood circulation through manipulation. Warming up cold body parts is painful, so maybe it's about distracting from the pain as well.
- bongodongobob 2y agoYeah it's extremely painful. I jumped into a frozen lake years ago and ran to a shower afterwards. Turned on the water, just slightly warm and it felt like my fingers and toes got smashed by a hammer.
- renewiltord 2y agoSome spas have this if you’d like to mimic it mildly. Aire in London has a very cool pool from which you can go to a very hot pool. I really enjoy the pins and needles effect.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoA friend was a Vietnamese POW. The first torture done was to tourniquet his upper arms until they colored to black and then loose the bindings (repeatedly). Returning circulation is much more brutal than it might sound.
- mistrial9 2y agook that is terrible, but note that gently slowing circulation to arms or legs and then returning circulation is a simple theraputic action that has been used for millennia
- aaomidi 2y agoTrying to understand the relevance of this comment
- normie3000 2y ago
- cyberax 2y agoOne thing to keep in mind, is that if somebody is hypothermic and not just frostbitten, then rapid re-warming is a bad idea. Body protects itself by shutting down blood flow to skin and extremities, keeping the core warm. So if the extremities are rapidly re-warmed, then blood vessels in them dilate. And then blood starts flowing through oxygen-depleted tissues that are cold and full of accumulated metabolic waste. Not a good combination, and you might end up with organ damage as a result. Gradual re-warming instead gives the body time to slowly clear the waste as blood flow re-establishes itself.
- Etheryte 2y agoThis is interesting, I was taught that instead of the metabolic waste, the issue was the cold blood from extremities quickly cooling down the internals once allowed to circulate freely. Do you have any references for this?
- dotancohen 2y agoWhat it's worth, we were taught the same thing about people crushed under e.g. rubble in combat medic training 20 years ago. And the same consideration applies to removing a tourniquet that had been in place for over two hours as well.
- xelamonster 2y agoSo what does that actually look like in practice, lifting the piece of rubble an inch at a time? How slowly would you release a tourniquet in that situation?
- cperciva 2y agoI'm not a medical doctor, but my understanding is that in the scenario of "patient's limb has been trapped/crushed for an extended period and can now be freed" you're supposed to tourniquet off the limb before freeing it. This helps both for delaying reperfusion issues until the patient can be in the hospital with IV lines in place, and also in case there's an injury which could cause massive blood loss (since a trapped limb is inherently one which is hard to inspect for injuries).
- schiffern 2y agoPerhaps it got started with people misunderstanding / misremembering drying off by rubbing snow on wet skin. Being wet in cold conditions can be a death sentence so you need to dry off quickly, and this is one of the recommended methods. https://www.ncexped.com/drying-off-snow/ https://www.ncexped.com/drying-off-snow/
- crazygringo 2y agoOh wow, that's counterintuitive until you remember that snow basically works like a sponge. So as long as it starts out cold enough and you're quick enough, the snow can soak up water before it melts and gets you wet all over again.
- notatoad 2y agoi've never heard of people doing this to skin or clothes, but i know it's a thing for dogs and horses - you rub snow on their feet after a stream crossing, and the dry snow pulls the water out of their fur.
- iancmceachern 2y agoTotally. It's interesting how it's counterintuitive I the exact same way as rubbing dry sand on your weet sand covered feet on the beach takes the sand off. Same mechanism too. Redistribution of the moisture back into the aggregate whole.
- consf 2y ago[dead]
- haccount 2y ago[flagged]
- jeltz 2y agoYeah, I am familiar with using snow to dry off wet clothes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AlotOfReading 2y agoI can easily see where you would get the idea to rub snow on the tissue from my own experiences with second degree frostbite. I did lukewarm water and that hurt. It felt like my hands were going to explode. Every impulse was screaming that it was exactly the wrong thing to do and I should go back outside where the pain was less.
- steve_adams_86 2y agoI had the same experience. I stepped into a hot shower with frostbite in two of my toes (just half of my big toe and bit of the the next toe over) and I inadvertently screamed and fell over, ripping the shower curtain down and everything. I wanted out badly. There’s no aching sensation quite like it that I’ve experienced. I’d definitely fail the gom jabbar. I still can’t feel anything in that side of my big toe, and it occasionally throbs mildly and I think of how incredibly painful serious and extensive frostbite would really be.
- grugagag 2y agoYou can’t feel anything on that side of your big toe after how long? Is full recovery ever expected?
- steve_adams_86 2y agoNo recovery expected, and it has been 20 years this January.
- homebrewer 2y agoSince OP isn't responding, I'll add that I completely lost feeling in the nose about ten years ago by staying outside in −45°C for way too long, and it never recovered. The front half feels like it's permanently under anesthetic. Other than that, it looks and works as it always did. I didn't even notice anything until three passerby in a row said that my nose looks funny and I should probably do something about it ASAP.
- 2y ago
- grugagag 2y agoWhen I was a kid we’d be spending a whole day playing in snow. When we’d come home in the evening with ice on the shoes, hair and cold hands and feet - but not as bad as getting real frost bites - would have a little warm up. My grandmother taught me to wash my hands with cold water at first then gradually add warm water. I still remeber cold water felt warm on frozen hands. Also many times when my hands were cold I’d make some snowballs, feel cold for a few seconds then my hands would start warming up really fast, like glowing with heat. I think there’s something to it, though being a bit cold and having frostbites is a big difference. I personally never experience any frostbite.
- m463 2y agoI keep my shower at the same temperature. In the morning it feels hot. But after hiking on a cold (not freezing) day the water feels SCALDING. I suspect there are actually two "hot" shower types: - the actual scalding shower with physical damage - the "scalding" shower which is actually skin-temperature-sensor overload that is more psychological. It is more a accustomed temperature difference thing. but below freezing / with frostbite, I have no idea.
- namaria 2y agoThermoception is indeed thought to be a response to heat flux rather than absolute temperatures. If the tissue is colder, water at the same temperature should warm it up faster and thus elicit a stronger heat perception.
- graeme 2y agoI think those are two different phenomena: 1. When your hands are really cold they aren't ready for warm water. If you start with cold water and warm it up you will figure out what your hands can handle and get to the point where you're safely adding heat. You might find the cool water is actually warmer than the outside of your hand to the touch. 2. If you hold snow blood rushes to the hand and the pumping feeling produces the sense of warmth
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- haccount 2y ago[flagged]
- crystaln 2y agoWhat would RFKjr do?
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- pazimzadeh 2y agoPolar bears dry off by rolling in snow