Experience: I’m allergic to the cold

‘I didn’t realise how much it would change my life’: Shauna Castaner in California, where she lives. Photograph: Andri Tambunan/The Guardian

In 2012, when I was 37, I started noticing that my fingers would get swollen and red whenever I held an iced drink. I thought it was strange, but I didn’t know what was going on. Then the same thing would happen when I handled food from the fridge. My instinct was to put my hands under hot water, but that made it worse.

For a while, that’s all I experienced. I thought it was weird but not dangerous. I was busy with my three children, so didn’t worry.