Numbness & Tingling in the Arms and Legs
Numbness and tingling in your extremities can have several causes:
Neurological
Vascular
Infectious
Autoimmunity
or Toxicity
If one loses blood supply to the nerves supplying sensation and motor function to your arms or legs, then those nerves can begin to misfire. You can have compression of a nerve, you can also have compression of a blood vessel going to a body part, and the consequence might be numbness and tingling. If you’ve ever been woken by the numbness in your arm, then you’ve experienced nerve compression called neuropraxia. A temporary type of numbness where once the compression is relieved sensation begins to return fairly quickly.
All nerves in your body need three things to survive:
Oxygen
Glucose and
Stimulation
As soon as one of those elements is missing, a nerve will begin to fatigue and then die.
Diabetes is a condition where the body can’t use all the glucose in the system, it can’t get it out of the blood, therefore nerves begin to malfunction. In addition, the elevated sugar in the blood stream along with the elevated levels of insulin for type II diabetics causes damage to the lining of the blood vessels and they can’t deliver nutrients and oxygen to the nerves that need them.
Numbness and tingling can be caused by an autoimmune diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS is a disease that causes plaquing of the myelin sheath around the nerve that allows a nerve to transmit its electrical pulse up and down itself.
Numbness and tingling in the arms can also be caused by a thoracic outlet syndrome. Any tunnel where a nerve passes through it can become compressed and cause these symptoms.
It can also be caused by an infection or trauma, but…
By far, the most common cause of numbness and tingling in the arms and legs is a disc bulge or disc herniation in the neck or low back.
If you are suffering with numbness and tingling in your arms or legs, the first step is to differentiate the cause, as this will dictate the appropriate treatment for you. We have many different treatments available to you depending on the cause. However, one of the most common causes of this numbness and tingling is a pinched nerve caused by a disc bulge or disc herniation.
If a disc bulge or herniation is the culprit, then Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression is a perfect treatment to get relief from this. Non-surgical spinal decompression allows us to reduce the compressive force on the disc, allowing us to reduce a disc herniations size and restore normal function to the disc. This can then remove the pressure on pinched nerves caused by the herniated disc leading to numbness and tingling in the arms and legs thereby reducing and eliminating the pain caused by them.
In addition, we do many other therapies designed to improve strength and mobility to your spine hips and neck to reduce the likelihood of re-injury. Non-invasive, non-surgical decompression should be tried before surgery, after a proper neurological examination has been performed to determine if you are a good candidate for this procedure. There will likely be many other specialized services performed and or taught to you to help you recover your lost function.
Obviously, if the cause of your numbness and tingling is from a metabolic disorder then the treatment would be to address that very differently than if the cause were a herniated disc. The only way to understand what would be best is for you to take the first step to get evaluated here.