Many conditions, lifestyle choices, medications, and diseases interfere with your ability to heal or fight infection. You may be at risk for a more serious problem from your symptoms if you have any of the following. Be sure to tell your health professional.

Conditions

• Babies and older adults
• A history of cold injury. Damage to the skin may happen more quickly in areas that had a cold injury in the past.
• Familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome (FCAS), a genetic condition also known as cold urticaria or cold-induced hives
• Conditions that may change your mental awareness, such as:
  • Mental illness
  • Drug or alcohol use or withdrawal
  • Alzheimer's disease or dementia
• Conditions that affect body temperature regulation, such as:
  • Hypopituitarism
  • Hypothyroidism
  • Hypoadrenalism
  • Hypoglycemia
  • Wernicke's encephalopathy
  • Stroke
  • History of a head injury
  • Poor nutrition or low body fat
  • Skin diseases or injury, such as burns
  • Parkinson's disease
• Conditions that slow the body's ability to make heat (metabolism), such as:
  • Hypothyroidism
  • Hypopituitarism
  • Adrenal gland disorders
• A problem or condition present since birth (congenital defect)
• A history of surgery to an area that had a cold injury
• Living in poverty or being homeless
• Immobility. If you are not able to move normally, your body does not make heat as well and you may feel colder.

Lifestyle choices

• Alcohol abuse or withdrawal
• Drug abuse or withdrawal
• Smoking or other tobacco use
• Heavy caffeine use

Medications

• Blood-thinning medications, such as warfarin, heparin, and aspirin
• Chemotherapy or radiation therapy
• Corticosteroids, such as prednisone
• Medications to prevent organ transplant rejection
• Other medications, such as heart, high blood pressure, antidepressant, or tranquilizer medications

Diseases

• Arteritis
• Atherosclerosis
• Burns
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Hemophilia
• Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection
• Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP)
• Kidney disease
• Lupus
• Malnutrition or an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia
• Multiple sclerosis
• Peripheral neuropathies
• Peripheral arterial disease
• Raynaud's phenomenon
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Skin diseases