How many times have you been told not to go out in chilly weather without proper clothing? What is so dangerous about cold weather anyways? Technically speaking, a human body is not well equipped to deal with even mild cold. It is just the behavioral adaptations that make humans survive extreme low temperatures. Behavioral adaptations include wearing proper clothing, and building shelters installed with heating systems. Every time, before the winter approaches, people living in cold regions get a heating repair service so that the system works fine during the winter.

This is quite essential for survival. Since a reduction in external temperature can lead to decrease in the normal temperature of a human body, it needs proper protection. Without proper clothing and shelter, decrease in external temperature can also decrease body temperature from 37°. This reduction in core temperature leads to impaired body function.

Obviously, there are some natural responses that follow with a decrease in temperature. When it gets cold, you start shivering and have goose pimples on your skin. These are some natural defenses to provide insulation when a person is feeling cold. However, with further decrease in temperature, it gets really hard for the body to maintain its core temperature.

In this case, the body works to maintain the normal temperature of vital organs while letting the extremities get cold. This is the reason why your fingers, cheeks, nose, ears and toes start to get cooler when you are exposed to cold. It happens to be an innate form of sacrifice that a human body has in place. As a tactic to prevent heat loss from the body, the extremities are deprived from the normal blood flow.

The reduction of blood flow to the extremities such as nose, fingers and toes is quite common in cold weather. However, the situation gets critical with prolonged exposure to extreme cold. This can potentially lead to frost nip or frost bite. It acts like a terminal situation in which the body sacrifices some parts to maintain the core temperature of the body. Otherwise, a person can die due to hypothermia for example, reduced body temperature.

The sacrifice is obviously painful, but is a tactic for the greater good of saving a life. What happens is that the nose, ears and fingers get an unnatural white color and often these parts lose sensation. The loss of color in these regions is due to reduced blood flow. So basically frost nip happens to be an early warning sign that the body is enduring too much. In frost nip, the surface layers of skin are literally frozen. And you all know that the skin is sloughed off as a result of burning from cold. This is not a permanent damage, however, if not treated it can surely lead to frost bite.

Frost bite is an irreparable damage. It is a state in which the skin actually goes beyond freezing temperature. Ice crystals start to form which actually kill the living cells. This damage cannot be repaired even upon re-warming. On the contrary, a hardened black carapace of dead cells is formed that loses sensation. Though the sacrifice is quite big, what is preserved as a result of this is even bigger.

Author Bio: Stewart Wrighter recently contacted a Louisville heating repair specialist to fix a problem at his office. He scheduled a Louisville heating specialist to check on the furnace to make sure it was properly maintained for the winter.

Category: Home Management
Keywords: Louisville heating repair,Louisville heating