Little girl is allergic to cold

MSNBC ^ | February 8, 2011 | Unknown

[Immerito]

Even eating ice cream is off-limits for 9-year-old Priscilla

Nine-year-old Priscilla Pomerantz can't play in the snow, eat ice cream or walk her dog during the winter. She can't get cold at all, because she suffers from an allergy called cold urticaria. For Priscilla, air temperatures below 70 degrees -- or even eating chilly foods -- trigger an allergic reaction of hives, swelling and difficulty breathing. Left untreated, the cold could literally kill her.

[ShadowAce]

Relax. I wasn't making light of this girl's situation.

Yes, I do know what they were saying.

[randog]

A friend of mine is allergic to midgets. Seriously.

I would suggest slow cooking them in a crock pot rather than roasting them--cured me of my midget allergy...;^)

[Hodar]

Hence my statement that this is a GEEK joke.

When you work with engineering, we use measurements like enthalapy and entrophy, coefficients of thermal expansion, etc. These deal with various levels of heat.

Cold does not exist, cooling is simply the rate at which heat is dissappated into the universe (hence the statement that the entrophy of the universe is always increasing). You cannot destroy energy, so where does all that heat go?

But, please don’t shoot the messanger - I merely passed the message on to driftdiver, who asked if Cold existed.

[massgopguy]

He’d get shaky, wobbly legged and dizzy around them. He said it on the air. So I told he had “Lollypopguildophobia”.

[Melas]

Can’t happen. Atomic motion would cease. Mathematically it can be done however: Subtract the difference in temperature between the Planck temperature from the (arbitrary)zero on your scale, multiply by two and move the result to the other side of your number line, and voila! It only fails because the difference would go beyond reducing matter to zero ground state temperatures, also known as absolute zero.

[Jewbacca]

“If it is 0 degrees”

What scale?

[ponygirl]

This. Is. SPARTA!!

[Hodar]

Thanks ... that was pretty good. Good for a chuckle or two.

I just have to remember not to try to explain that one to my wife; it just makes her get mad.

[SquarePants]

Just one more reason to cheer for a warmer planet /s

[wbill]

This sounds like another made-up “disease” like ADHD and ADD.

nah, I'm allergic to the cold too. I've mostly grown out of it, but if I got nipped a bit (think feet, hands, and esp around my mouth) I break out in eczema. Only, really, really bothers me when I get it in, ahem, "nether regions", like where clothes rub.

I grew up in Maine and survived, so it was hardly debilitating. More of a nuisance. I can still hear my mother nagging me to "wear a hat. and mittens. etc etc etc."

But, "Allergic to Cold" does exist.

[jla]

Cold does not exist. It cannot be measured or observed. What people call cold is actually a lack of heat

What are those tubes filled with mercury? One cannot observe water changing to ice?

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This is a real syndrome:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_cold_urticaria

It is some type of immune system malfunction. As such, oddly enough, she should have her GI tract flora analyzed to determine what microorganism blend she has compared to healthy people.

Even stranger, her response might be due to a malfunction caused by the absence of an intestinal parasite.

[svcw]

Is that the same as there is no such thing a light, it is just an absent of dark.

[mistfree]

Actually it sounds like PCH Paroxsymal Cold Hemoglobinuria
Found most often in children after a viral infection and the problem starts when the blood gets cool but doesn't actually manifest itself until the blood warms up again. Goes to the feet and hands, cools off and returns to the core and gets warm again. Or the so called ice cube test. Cool the spot then warm it back up. Self limiting disease goes away in time, but it can be very severe even fatal in some.

[austen]

I had this problem when I was seven years old — I used to break out in terrible hives when I jumped into a cold swimming pool and I was diagnosed with cold urticaria. Happily, I outgrew the problem.

[Jolla]

take your pick

[Jolla]

take your pick

[Jewbacca]

Plank

[Jewbacca]

Sorry, Kelvin.

[boop]

It IS real. I had a patient who jumped into a swimming pool and came out with hives everywhere. I thought it was the chlorine, but a specialist diagnosed him with cold urticaria.