Public ordered by doctor to do easy one-minute test to see if they have health condition
BBC Morning Live resident doctor and author Dr Punam Krishan is calling for the public to participate in a 60-second online test to determine if they could be one of the 10 million people in the UK impacted by Raynaud's. The condition is where the small blood vessels in the extremities, such as the hands, feet, fingers, or toes, are oversensitive to even the slightest change in temperature and, sometimes, emotional stress.
It results in the skin turning white, then blue, and finally red as circulation returns, and it can often be accompanied by numbness or pain. The symptoms are often triggered by fluctuating temperatures, with many experiencing them now that winter has kicked in. It can be an indicator of more serious, life-limiting illnesses such as scleroderma. The symptoms include numbness, tingling, skin colour changes, pain in fingers and toes in response to different temperatures or stress, and stinging or throbbing sensation when they warm up after exposure to the cold.
Dr Krishan said: "Contributing to medical research projects doesn't have to be a complex and invasive process – mass' citizen science' projects such as the ZOE COVID Symptom Tracker App showed how valuable simple health data could be in helping medical professionals to learn more about a condition and therefore offer faster diagnosis and protect lives.
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"With your help, we can take similar steps forward for patients living with Raynaud's, scleroderma, and other related conditions by sparing just one minute to take SRUK's online test. I've already taken the test and encourage as many people as possible to do the same. This campaign is one particularly close to my heart as I know just how challenging the condition can be."
Dr Krishan is part of Scleroderma & Raynaud's UK (SRUK), which wants the public to #BePartOfTheAnswer as it initiates a pioneering 'citizen science' study on Raynaud's and related auto-immune conditions.
The research project is led by SRUK in partnership with Professor Francesco Del Galdo, Associate Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Leeds and Rheumatology Consultant at Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust.
Professor Del Galdo said: "Raynaud's is as common as it is hard to manage. People with Raynaud's and their doctors do not have a simple blood test to tell them how the condition is progressing or responding to treatment.
"So, patients need to keep a mental note of their symptoms and report them at their sporadic appointments with their healthcare professional. The STAR App will offer a handy and simple-to-use tool to track Raynaud's attacks, associate them with other symptoms, physical activity, and the weather , and will provide both patients and doctors a reliable tool to measure the impact of Raynaud's."
You can take the online test, here.
