Simi, an IT consultant for 17 years, was diagnosed with Raynaud’s when she moved to the U.K. She has since created her own business, SnugToes, providing heatable slippers for the Raynaud’s community.
Being a brown lady, when I try to explain to a white person that my fingers go white when I get a Raynaud’s attack, they laugh. At that point I can tell straight away that they have never encountered the disease.
Simi was diagnosed with Raynaud’s when she moved to the U.K from Nigeria. In hindsight, she believes she suffered it as a child as she remembers going to fetch items out of the freezer always caused her considerable pain for a while afterwards.
Grocery shopping or even being in an air conditioned room in hot countries is enough to trigger an attack. This results in embarrassing moments when Simi struggles to load her shopping bags or ask for the AC to be turned off altogether. She will wear leather gloves lined with pure wool, which help outdoors. Indoors, she uses heat gel pads and carries them around till the hands warm up, and after a few years of wearing heatable slippers, her feet appear to withstand the outdoor cold a bit better.
She says that stepping out of the house into the cold with already cold hands and feet is never a good idea so it’s best to warm the core up before going outside. The biggest challenge she has ever had was taking her sons to football or rugby matches on winter mornings. Watching and cheering on for two to three hours at sometimes sub-zero degrees was a true test of her love.
I keep my hands and feet warm all the time. I find indoors is the hardest because one takes for granted that you are indoors. Typical slippers sometimes don’t help but when they are heated, my feet are happy. I am hoping Snugtoes can be instrumental in bringing an affordable and simple solution to keeping feet warm for sufferers of cold feet, particularly those with circulatory problems.