system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When you wash your skin with lukewarm or hot water after you’ve been in freezing temperatures, why does it feel like the skin is burning? Is your body actually in danger or are the nerves misinterpreting what is happening? Are there other examples of this situation?
gpt
This happens because when your body gets cold it constricts blood flow to the extremities first so that it can maintain heat in the core areas of the body such as the brain and and abdominal. This causes nerves to shut down in the extremities which is why you don't feel as much pain when you are cold and any pain you feel seems duller. Then when you introduce sudden heat to the area it is a huge boost in energy to these nerves that were pretty much shut down and this energy causes them to surge and reconnect with the central cortex and you experience this as pain. Also, when they are hit by the sudden heat your nerves have to preform a kind of calibration to readjust themselves to what is actually painful.