why do your nails turn purple when youre cold

Not the nails, the fingers, the toes,the lips any extremity open to cold conditions. For instance, when a person suffers from hypothermia, their entire body becomes frigid, thus the most open portions of the body, like the fingers and toes suffer the worst, and are easiest to become the coldest, the fastest. In the case of gangrene for instance, when people have been out in cold for more than a day at a time, gangrene conditions turn a limb from purple, to green, to black, wherefore, there is no saving that limb, and it therefore must be amputated.

People who suffer from frostbite is actually just the start of gangrene, your fingers become numb in the cold, and start developing a slight purple to them that isn't really just yet detectable to the naked eye. In most conditions consisting of frostbite, your extremities can be saved, yet, when feeling does return to them, it's very painful, because your nerve endings have been temporarily frozen, the feeling is much like burning.

When people die, especially in the cases of drownings or suffocation, the body retains the standard purplish hue around the eyes, lips, back of the ears, finger tips, and toes, as well as in the abdominal region. The reason why in the head, is because oxygen to and from the brain has been cut off indefinitely, and the brain is clinically dead. The reason why in the abdominal area is from the organs shutting down. And lastly, the reason why once more in the tips of both fingers and toes is due in part because these parts of the limbs are the most exposed and cool faster.