Why does my skin turn purple when I'm cold?

What could be the cause of these skin symptoms?

• with the skin, when its cold, my thighs start to get real numb and after a while in being in the cold, they start to feel real warm and its not a comfortable warmth either and then i have to keep rubbing my thighs and then it starts to itch badly. it happend to when i would wear shorts and it would be cold and it would be worse becasue the cold was hitting my skin directly and i wouls get goosebumps kinda but then they would swell up into into little bumps and itch and would turn like a redish color and it would be really warm. i get the itchiness on my thighs and legs. i have really sensitive skin, i get rashes when i touch grass because im alergic to it, i get rashes when im in the sun for to long, and i get really itchy red skin when im in the cold. can anyone please help? any help would be greatly appreciated! thank you

• Answer:

  You have two things happening here, that could be independent from one another... As you already said yourself, you have allergic reactions and very sensitive skin. The other thing is not necessarily related to your skin alone.... as cold temperatures causes your blood vessels to constrict, this leads to numbness since less blood flow reduces the oxygen supply to the affected areas on your body! If this is a chronic condition, your doctor may also diagnose this as Raynaud's Syndrome.