Why Are My Hands and Feet Tingling?

Your nerves are a significant part of your body's structure, allowing you to feel sensations, including pain and tingling. If you have tingling in your hands or feet, you may have an issue with the nerves in your peripheral nervous system.

At Integrated Body and Medicine, we help you understand what's causing this uncomfortable sensation in your extremities. Our team consists of experienced providers offering customized treatments for long-term relief.

What causes tingling?

Have you ever been relaxing and suddenly felt tingling in your hands or feet? While this may result from simply lying the wrong way, it could also be from other conditions.

If you have numbness and tingling in either your hands or feet that occurs frequently, it could be due to any of the following problems:

Nerve problems

Nerve entrapment problems can lead to tingling in your extremities. These issues include carpal tunnel syndrome and ulnar or radial nerve palsy.

Vitamin deficiencies

Vitamins are essential to many of your body's functions. When you're deficient in specific vitamins, the result is uncomfortable symptoms like numbness or tingling in your hands and feet.

Vitamins B12, B1, B6, and E are all essential for nerve health. You may experience tingling sensations throughout your body when you have a deficiency.

Autoimmune problems

Autoimmune disorders may also disrupt your nervous system, resulting in tingling sensations in your arms, hands, legs, and feet. Examples of autoimmune problems include rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Injuries

Traumatic injuries can lead to nerve injuries. When you injure yourself, your nerves can become crushed or compressed, resulting in pain or tingling in your extremities.

Infections

Certain types of infections can lead to tingling in your hands and feet. You may experience these symptoms if you have herpes simplex virus, Lyme disease, or shingles.

Understanding neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy is a condition that affects the peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nervous system contains all of the nerves in your body that aren't in your brain or spinal cord.

The most common cause of peripheral neuropathy is diabetes. When you have diabetes, the higher level of glucose in your blood damages the nerves over time. The result is numbness and tingling, most often in your legs and feet.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is another type of peripheral neuropathy affecting your arm's median nerve. When something compresses the median nerve, you experience pain and tingling in the affected wrist and hand.

You may also experience tingling if you have complex regional pain syndrome. CRPS damages the tiny nerve fibers, often leading to intense pain and tingling in your extremities.

Without treatment, peripheral neuropathy worsens, leading to more intense symptoms of tingling, numbness, and pain. Early intervention and treatment of underlying causes is the best way to get peripheral neuropathy under control.

When should you seek treatment?

Unexplained tingling in your hands or feet should immediately signal you to seek help. It's one thing to have tingling in your hands because your arm “fell asleep," but if symptoms persist during regular activities, you should have our team evaluate your symptoms.

During your appointment, we ask you questions about your symptoms to get a clear picture of what may be causing your symptoms. We ask about your previous and family medical history to rule out other issues.

After performing a thorough physical exam, we may order blood testing or imaging studies to determine the root cause of the tingling. Nerve conduction studies are also helpful in diagnosing the problem.

Once the results are in, we formulate a specific treatment plan tailored to your condition and needs. Treating the underlying cause of the tingling is the best way to get your symptoms under control.

We offer a drug-free treatment program for neuropathy that focuses on the underlying problem instead of masking it with medications.

If you're dealing with extremity tingling, call our office in the greater Highland and Hammond, Indiana, area to schedule an appointment, or book online.