Moctezuma's punishment

July 29, 2010 11:15 AM

Why are my feet so hot?

This is a really weird question, but in the summer, my feet overheat to the point where they HURT. It's only the soles. There is no trigger to that; I mostly notice it at night, though. My husband has touched them and he says they're so hot as to make him feel a little pain. This has caused problems for me before, as I can't go hiking or walk barefoot on hot places without getting blisters on my soles. I have NO idea what could be causing this, but I definitely want to stop it, as it's annoying and painful. Help?

posted by cobain_angel to health & fitness (13 comments total)

You mention pain: do they also itch and/or do you get dry skin? If so, might be a fungal infection.
posted by MuffinMan at 11:18 AM on July 29

It's not unusual for feet to overheat, because most of the time we keep them sealed inside shoes where they get inadequate ventilation, and even if you are wearing sandals (which helps) the soles of the feet still remain constantly in contact with the soles of the sandals, and again may need more ventillation. I would suggest giving your feet more opportunity to breathe.

I do find it hard to believe that your feet become so extremely hot that your husband feels some pain when he touches them. Of course, it is a matter of astronomical fact that the planet Venus (from when women supposedly come) is much hotter than the planet Mars (from whence men supposedly come).
posted by grizzled at 11:23 AM on July 29

Is it constant throughout the day, or does it vary depending on footwear?
posted by shakespeherian at 11:24 AM on July 29

I don't want to alarm you, but burning hot feet at night is sometimes a symptom of diabetic neuropathy. Please see a doctor.
posted by angiep at 11:29 AM on July 29 [1 favorite]

MuffinMan: No, they do not itch, and I have really soft skin. Putting lotion on them helps mostly because of the moisture.

shakespeherian: I hardly ever wear closed-toe shoes in the summer, mostly flip flops. I walk barefoot at my house. It gets MUCH worse when I wear tennis shoes with socks or other combination of closed toe shoes, though. Like I said, I notice them more at night and when I get up. Right now they don't feel too hot.

angiep: Eep! Will do, thanks.
posted by cobain_angel at 11:36 AM on July 29

My grandmother had a similar issue, and some googling mentioned it as a symptom of a vitamin B deficiency. Might not be the case for you, but perhaps something to look into.
posted by backwards guitar at 11:40 AM on July 29

Cellulitis. Go see a dr so he can confirm via a few tests.
posted by hal_c_on at 3:19 PM on July 29

Moving out of the realm of western medical science, according to chinese medicine this points to a yin deficiency. I'm not gonna say don't see a doctor for diabetic neuropathy or cellulitis or whatever, but while you're getting the appointment scheduled, you might eat some of these yin-building foods or drink a tea of these herbs.
posted by salvia at 5:47 PM on July 29

My grandfather, sister and I all get painfully hot feet at night. We always have (when my sister was probably 7 or 8, our younger sister made her some little slippers that she could put ice cubes in, as a present. SO CUTE). We call it "hot-foot". I don't think they're painfully hot to the touch, so this may be a different thing than what you have. I think at least in my case, it's just due to poor circulation. I also get Raynaud's phenomenon in the winter. Watching my feet go from light blue to bright red in the shower used to really give me the creeps before I knew there was a name for it.

For me, the main issue is that I can't sleep if my feet are hot. On a hot night, I'll typically soak my feet in cold water for a little while so they cool off and then immediately go to bed. I also use cold packs that I keep in the fridge if I don't have time to soak my feet - for example, if I wake up in the middle of the night for any reason, my feet are invariably way too hot to get back to sleep again, so I'll go get a cold pack and put it on my feet to let them cool down again.


Of course, if this is something that just started recently for you, I'd say it was much more likely to be something like an infection. I just started being treated for hypothyroid, and I'm interested to see whether it'll improve my circulation. I'll memail you if it does...
posted by little light-giver at 9:34 PM on July 29

It started when I moved up here (Idaho) from California. Curiously, my feet do turn so red it's almost purple when I'm in the shower. I soak my feet too, and I sleep with a fan at the foot of the bed, which helps. I will be getting a medical, though; maybe it has to do with something more serious.
posted by cobain_angel at 11:11 PM on July 29

I'm guessing you might have what i have, Raynaud's syndrome. (Note that the pictures in that article are extreme - mine almost never change color that brightly/dramatically.) Especially when you said your feet turn purple, that's the key sign. I have had it since I was in 6th grade and I do not treat it with medication. Talk to your doctor to see if he thinks you have it.

My feet get so hot they feel like they are on fire, so I try to wear good tennis shoes (I have flat feet too) that are mesh-vented, and sometimes I just have to sit down on a store bench and take them off for a few minutes. They also turn white or purple, as do my fingers, in the cold, whether it's just getting undressed to get in the shower or outside clearing snow off my car in the winter. For that, you should make sure to wear good socks, shoes, and gloves in the cold.
posted by IndigoRain at 12:53 AM on July 30

I forgot to mention... while the Wikipedia article mostly talks about the blue or white changes in the cold, it's sometimes called "red white and blue" disease, and the abnormal redness/heat is a symptom too. When I'm feeling "normal," my fingers are so red that some people think it almost looks like I've dipped my fingers in Kool-Aid.
posted by IndigoRain at 12:56 AM on July 30

It started when I moved up here (Idaho) from California.

One big difference between Idaho and California would be the amount of vitamin D you'd get from sunlight during the winter.

This intrigues me in light of MuffinMan's suggestion of fungus infection and hal_c_on's suggestion of cellulitis, because vitamin D has a big role in fighting a broad range of infections:

VDR ligands have been shown to increase the activity of natural killer cells, and enhance the phagocytic activity of macrophages.[22] Active vitamin D hormone also increases the production of cathelicidin, an antimicrobial peptide that is produced in macrophages triggered by bacteria, viruses, and fungi.[94][95][96]

On this basis, I would say everything you experience could be explained if you have a chronic infection of some kind in your feet (athlete's foot is a very common example of such) which was kept in check by higher consistent levels of vitamin D in California, but which gets out of control a bit during the winter in Idaho.

But when you do get more vitamin D in the summer in Idaho, your immune system goes after the infection strongly, and you get very hot, reddened feet at night-- and that kind of heat can readily exceed your body temperature, just as a fever does your normal body temperature (which, as grizzled notes, is an unusual circumstance that needs to be accounted for).

For now, I think you should try athlete's foot creams and bathing your feet in Nizoral shampoo, under the assumption it's a fungus, and see if that reduces the occurrence of the problem.

And I think you ought take vitamin D supplements in the winter, which may have other beneficial side effects, since one of the more interesting recent directions in obesity research is exploring the possibility people who don't get much sunlight in the winter get fat to prevent winter vitamin D deficiency, because vitamin D is fat-soluble, and fat deposits allow them to store the summer's harvest of vitamin D.
posted by jamjam at 7:23 PM on July 30 [1 favorite]