UKC

Hello,

I am conducting a research project into hot aches as part of my medical degree at Dundee University.

The winter season has already begun, and if you are a winter climber, it would be great if you could spare 5 min to answer some questions on hot aches. Despite many of us being very familiar with them, as a phenomenon it is undocumented and not understood. This research it is aimed at Scottish winter climbers but any experiences of hot aches would be valuable.

This research will be used to try an understand what hot aches are to different people, and if there are any common factors that lead to them. I am also conducting a practical study to recreate hot aches in a controlled environment, i.e. not whilst climbing on Ben Nevis, to try and understand what is happening. If you are interested in participating then please complete the survey and leave your email address at the end in the space provided.

Here is the link to the survey: http://A1Surveys.com?u=hotaches

Your help is much appreciated.

Andrew

This research has been approved by the Dundee University Research Ethics Committee: UREC 14140

In reply to climberandy:

If the ethics committee are ok with you recreating hot aches in a lab they've obviously never experienced them!

=O

Will you be releasing the results of your research?

In reply to Bob_the_Builder:

I think it is fair to say that non of them will have, but you never know! I am very specific in my proposal about what I was planning to do and the desired outcome, and I'm happy to send these details to people if they want. Just send me an email. ajdmelvin@dundee.ac.uk.

The plan is to ultimately submit this as a research paper, which always takes some time. I would certainly be willing to write an article summarising my findings in UKC, the only issue being that this will have to follow the official publication. So to answer your question, I will certainly release the results of the research, it just might take a while.

Andrew

Thank you to all those who have answered so far.

Could you please answer YES or NO, to the have you ever had hot aches question.
So far 10 people have left it out!

Thanks

In reply to climberandy:

Done. At last a survey request on UKC that is not just badly thought out sociological bollocks and might actually have a useful outcome.

In reply to climberandy:

I thought hot aches was caused by blood being forced back into closed capillaries? Is that a myth?

In reply to climberandy:

Good luck with the research

In reply to Kemics:


There's an explanation here: http://www.climbing.com/skill/ask-the-climbing-docs-the-screaming-barfies/

In reply to climberandy:

Filled it in... good survey, hope something comes out of it!

In reply to climberandy:

Completed. Very interested in the results!

In reply to climberandy:

Completed - well-structured q'aire... would be very interested in the results/conclusions. Thanks

In reply to climberandy:

Done.

In reply to climberandy:

Done, looking forward to the results. Hope you can get plenty of funding so to get a breakthrough in the treatment of this terrible disease!

In reply to Turdus torquatus:

I believe that at the moment this is a hypothesis and has not actually been proven. I have not been able to find anything in the scientific literature that comes close to describing the hot aches, but that does not mean that it doesn't exist. My research at the moment is split into two parts, the first part is this questionnaire to find out exactly how prevalent it is amongst climbers, define it as a phenomenon and to see if any patterns exists.

The second part is quite simple at this stage, to see if I can create authentic hot aches in the lab.

The next phase, based on the results of the first two parts is to look into what is causing it. To do this I need to have good evidence and results from the first two parts as this is a considerably bigger and more complex question.

Thank you to everyone who has completed it so far, over 200 people which is a great response.

Please do fill it out if you have not done it yet, and remember to answer the "Have you ever had hot aches question" YES or NO. People are still leaving it out (50 of you).

Many thanks

Andrew

In reply to climberandy:

It might not fit with your timing, but may I suggest, if it is possible, to keep the survey going, or re-post this a bit later in the season, when people's hot-aches experiences are fresher in their memories

In reply to climberandy:

Hi Andy,

I did a dissertation at university in '96 on core temp and cold induced vasodilatation, which from memory is a postulated mechanism for "hot aches". Have to admit I can't remember conclusions. (London QM university med sci degree)

Outline was fingers dipped in ice water with in situ rectal thermometers. Time to CIVD measured. Think we might have done heart rate etc as well.

There's lots of literature about body fat composition & survival times in cold water. Maybe more body shape/ hand shape/ arm & wrist measurements/ metabolism parameters might contextualise "risk"?

Good luck.

In reply to climberandy:

Damn
Thought I might get a free DVD by giving them feedback on their films.
No such luck.

Used to get them badly windsurfing in the winter, as did everybody else I sailed with. Rarer for dinghy sailors. I think arm position has something to do with it.

In reply to James Gordon:

Im not sure what people would think if I went that far! I've not got approval for rectal thermometers, which might come as a relief to some people.

I'm familiar with CIVD from the literature and you're right the majority of papers I've encountered are concerned with adaptation to cold, dexterity in cold, survival etc. My thoughts are that there is something different about the process of climbing when cold, that leads to them. First step for me is to see if I can re-create them first!

Thanks for your input!

In reply to nufkin:

I'm planning to keep it going until Christmas so that should hopefully be a good enough timeframe for enough people to see it.

I'll keep posting to try and keep it at the top!

In reply to Dogwatch:


I've had bad hot aches just deicing the car on a really cold mornings.

In reply to the op:

From my experience I get hot aches for one of two reasons - the first, like deicing the car, involves my fingers getting really cold really quickly, usually wet at the same time. The second, rarer for me, happens when I get generally cold then warm up a bit - happened walking in the Cairngorm's in winter, no safe spot to put another layer on until I was really quite cold then when I had put another layer on and started to warm up I got hot aches in both hands and both feet. I wasnt a happy bunny...

Do you have to have winter climbing experience for the questionnaire? I don't, but I've a fair bit of hot aches experience!

In reply to freerangecat:




At the start of this

'This research it is aimed at Scottish winter climbers but any experiences of hot aches would be valuable.'

In reply to Colin Moody:

I did see that, but if you've looked at the questionnaire the majority of the questions involve winter climbing despite that therefore I wasn't sure if it was of any use me filling it out when, for reasons I won't go into, it's not an easy task for me. I'm happy to fill it out if it helps, but if it'll be rejected because I'll be leaving half the questions blank then I won't.

Cat

In reply to freerangecat:

I don't winter climb but did the questionnaire.

Thanks to everyone for filling it out!

I want to assure people that I will not be throwing out responses just because they are not winter climbers. Part of this survey is to get a grasp on when and where people get them. The most important parts are:

1) Have you experienced hot aches? ( a question rather a lot of people have left out)

2) All the questions pertaining to the actual experience.. i.e.. symptoms, when, where and how

As i've designed this from a winter climbing perspective there are questions relating to climbing, but these can be left out. There is then a free-from box that will allow people to enter extra information i.e. getting them doing other sports, or de-icing the car. I had to make a box in which to design the survey, but hopefully it is flexible enough to gather other information too.

Hope that helps

Andrew

In reply to climberandy:

Thanks for that, I'll fill it in.

Cat

In reply to climberandy:

Brilliant survey - hope you manage to gather all the info you need.

In reply to climberandy:

I don't think it has anything to do with climbing. It's surely simply the extremities getting cold then warming up again. I do wonder if it is related to the pace of the warming up - too slow means you avoid them?

In reply to climberandy:

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has responded so far. Over 300 which is great.

Another big thank you to everyone who has filled it out. I've nearly, nearly hit the 400 mark which is a super fantastic response.

So thanks again everyone!

Andrew

In reply to climberandy:

Filled out the survey.

One thing I've noticed is that I seem to be quite a bit more suseptible to hot aches these last few winters. I've been winter climbing for around 15 years. I've always had hot aches, usually when gearing up when I remove my gloves to put crampons on, but never used to get it again. I the last 4 years or so I seem to get it several times up routes, not sure if this is age related (I'm 35) or if repeated exposure to hot aches over the years has done some sort of damage, making me more suseptible to getting them.

I would be very interested if you manage to find a cure, or a fool proof method of prevention!

In reply to MikeR:

That's interesting. The elderly have poorer circulation but you won't qualify in that department for a long time!

Would be interesting to discern whether there is any lasting damage before one gets to the frost nip stage. There is certainly likely to be if you've had that repeatedly (even mild frost nip).

In reply to climberandy:

Without wishing at all to be patronising, it's really good to see a well thought out/ spelt/ formatted questionnaire.

In reply to climberandy:


I've always liked that description of training for winter climbing by standing on ones tippytoes, with ones hands in a fridge freezer department whilst ones wife / partner empties bags of flour over ones heid, but having a thermometer stuck up ones ar$e at the same time is just carrying things a step too far.

I'd not thought of the flour idea! maybe combine it with intermittent ice bucket challenges as well!

Just wanted to say thanks again, pushing past 450 responses now, which is amazing. I'm secretly hoping I might be able to hit the magic 500 number, so please fill it out if have not had a chance to yet. Also, please answer the have you had hot aches yes/no questions!

I just wanted to say a big thanks to everyone who has done the questionnaire, so far. So close to 500 responses!

I also want to say that I will be in touch with all the people who have volunteered for the study. This will be sometime after Christmas once I've had a chance to collect all the data.

Thank you everyone.

Andrew