bad circulation in toes?

[megantaylor]

i'm 14 years old and i think i have really bad circulation in my toes. I can just be sitting in my house and if i look down at my toes they will be a purple/bluey colour and sometimes even black. I also get bad chillblains but i'm not sure what to do about this because i try to cover my feet up as much as possible but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Can you explain what this is and if there is anything i can do to help it? thanks.

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi
Welcome to the MedHelp forum!
I agree with Surgimenopause. Venous stasis, venous thrombosis or your muscles contracting due to pain such that there is decreased blood supply to your feet can be the explanation for purple colored toes. One possible explanation is ‘Raynaud’s Syndrome’, either the primary or the secondary variant. The secondary variant is associated with autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid, SLE or scleroderma). This disorder is characterized by episodic contraction of the blood vessels in the fingers and toes. I know you are only 14, but if you smoke or take any drugs, then this purple/black discoloration can be due to them.
Hope this helps. It is difficult to comment beyond this at this stage. Do discuss with your doctor (PCP).  Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!

[LivingInHope]

Raynaud's, not fully understood by the medical community, can cause change in color in your feet, so you might look that up because I think there's a strong possibility that's what you have.  

Also, since diabetes can lead to poor circulation in your feet and diabetes can strike in childhood, you should make sure you don't have that.  

And peripheral vascular disease, typically hereditary, can strike as early as teenage years, and causes poor circulation in your feet, so you might have a doctor check your pedal (feet) pulses and maybe even order a doppler to check blood flow as well as getting a cholesterol check (some peoples' bodies naturally make a lot of cholesterol).