Hey everyone! I’ve been searching the web all night looking for answers on why my fingers are currently stained orange and just found this forum! I woke up today and was just resting in bed with my eyes closed, thinking to myself for a few hours due to being really fatigued (I have CFS, fibromyalgia, hypersomnia and Lyme disease so I have difficulty getting out of bed a lot). I finally got up to use the restroom and that’s when I noticed my fingers and how they looked like I had some kind of blood staining on them. I was really confused (still am) because my hands were fine when I went to bed last night. I didn’t get to bed until early morning hours so I know they looked normal around 3am. I wash my hands before I brush my teeth and floss every night so I would’ve noticed. When I tried washing my hands it wouldn’t come off and now it’s nighttime and it’s still there. I thought it was blood because it seems to be concentrated around the nail bed/cuticle and is even on my fingernail itself so I checked my fingers for cuts or skin breakage but there’s nothing (only a bit on my pinky that got some skin shaved off a while ago but it never broke through so it never bled and it’s been healing fine and there’s no scab). There’s also zero pain or discomfort anywhere so then I thought maybe it was from injuring myself in my sleep somewhere else. I checked my body for any wounds or scabs and there’s nothing. I also thought maybe I picked my nose in my sleep and it bled (I have allergies and my nose is really dry right now so it’s not a reach) but my nose looks normal and feels normal. Plus the fingers this is on just don’t make sense for that. It’s on my right ring finger and pinky finger predominantly, my left index finger but only slightly and it’s mostly the darker dried blood looking stuff along the cuticle area, a smaaaaall amount of orange on the outside of the ring finger of my left hand and then a few small spots on my right palm and underside of fingers. When I realized that It wouldn’t wash off I started really trying to figure out what it was since blood should’ve washed off. I read through this forum and thought about the food theory. I have terrible eating habits due to my basically non existent energy levels so yesterday I didn’t really eat much. I had a small amount of shrimp, scallops and Dover sole kind of stir fry thing last night. It had maybe 3 cherry tomatoes in it, parsley, onion and then a marinade which was just lemon and garlic and a couple other spices. I had a few bbq potato chips also; which was something I thought could’ve caused the stain but I eat with my left hand and this staining is mostly on my right. Also not the fingers I use to pick up chips even if I had used my right hand so that doesn’t work either. I don’t eat sweet peppers at all, don’t like them. I eat tomatoes, not a lot of them but regularly enough to know that I don’t react to them in any way. I’m not big on orange or red foods, carrots I like but I never eat them. I haven’t had any oranges in a while. I have a soy intolerance so I never eat soy unless it’s in something without my knowledge.
Something else I’d like to add and ask everyone here is if any of y’all noticed other symptoms happening while you had this staining? I was experiencing a slight metallic taste in my mouth all morning in bed before noticing my fingers and I’m still experiencing it. I’ve also been extremely shaky today, to the point where my roommate pointed it out multiple times all day and were concerned about it. Both of these things aren't normal for me. I do have problems shaking when I’m hypoglycemic so I ate to try to get my blood sugar up but it didn’t help and I’m still shaky no matter what food I eat today. I’m hoping this goes away like some of you mentioned it did for you but I want to know what would cause this! I’m dumbfounded. Has anyone found more information on this? Btw I’m in Portland, OR, USA and am an (almost) 25 year old female, seems like there’s not a pattern in age or gender but maybe location could be a commonality? Everyone seems to be in different locations but maybe there are similar environmental factors or something we’re exposed to?
