tingling in toes, fingertips, and soles of feet

Hi there,

A problem I've had off and on is tingling(pins and needles) in my fingertip, toes, and soles of my feet. It is only occasionally and bouts last no more than 5 minutes.

I'm thinking its climbing related because that is what puts stress on those parts. I had temporary nerve damage in my arm from a dislocated shoulder and this is very similiar, but in all extremities.

Does anybody have similiar problems or know of possible causes. I was thinking poor circulation, but it seems to happen equally as often when my hands and feet are cold or nice and pink and warm.

Cheers
Evan

Hi Evan, a few questions:

Is it in all your extremities simultaneously, or only in a couple digits at a time? Any idea what brings the feeling on? Is it always/only after exercise? Do you ever lose sensation, or is it always pins & needles?

hey evan, i'm no doc, but what you are describing sounds very familiar to me, and i hate to say this, but i've had 2 buds who suffered from slipped discs with similar symptoms.

generally feelings of tingles/pins/needles, and extremities falling asleep.

this happend to both of them quite young. early twenties for one and late twenties for another.

do you take part in any high impact sports? agressive snowboarding caused one, maybe basketball another. i wonder if highball bouldering could also cause this?

the deal was that the discs between the spine rupture, and the juice pokes in the spinal cord, which causes the weird sensations.

one had vertebre fusion, the other had 2 surgies to basically cut out the stuff poking out.

good thing is that they are both fine and active, with little or no loss of ability.

good luck dude.

S

Climbing just hurts some time.....

Well, basketball was my life for the first 18 years. No other high impact sports except climbing(no bouldering).

It's usually only the feet or the hands at one time and I've noticed it more frequently after a hard session at the climbing gym. It has never been total numbness.

I am right in the age group of your buddies with bad backs, but my back is actually probably the healthiest part of my support systems. I have crappy shoulders and hips. I'm thinking it might be compression of nerve pathways in these joints.

What types of things should I be asking my doctor to check for?

Are you diabetic?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyn…

After stumping your doc a few times, maybe have them take a look at your neck (MRI?) to make sure there's no compression up there. Given you're having problems in hands and feet, that could reflect an issue upstream. Do you have any enhanced sensitivity to light touch at times? Meaning do you find a light poke or pinch more painful than it should be/used to be?

Evan, I am actually going through some PT for something that sounds very similar. I started getting numbness/tingling in my R. forearm and thumb. I did not have a noticeable injury that caused it. From what I have learned from the PT is that it is likely a nerve issue, either from the neck vertebrae or from the nerves in the neck/shoulder area. The PT and I have been working on correcting my neck extension (think looking up at a climber). The nerves that run down to your hand come out of the neck and run into the shoulder in a bundle encapsulated in the traps (I think). If the neck has some constriction at the point where the nerve exits it, then that could be the problem. In addition, if the nerves in the traps are inflamed, then the capsule of the nerve will constrict it and cause the symptoms. My nerve in the traps is quite constricted so we are working on "loosening" that.

Since my issue is primarily with one arm, it may be quite different from yours. If it is affecting all your extremities, then I would guess it is a spine issue. If you figure out what it is soon enough, then it will likely be easy to fix.

Buena Suerte !

I have a chiro friend who has been looking at it. He thinks that the arm tingling is from my past shoulder injuries. He thinks its nerve compression. I am on a regiment of shoulder strengthening and micro-current excericises, which seem to be helping.

My toes, he thinks might be caused by bad circulation, which I have a history of.

I figured I'd let him have a go first. The massages as pleasant, at least, and I do seem to have some benefit.

thanks fore your input. I'll give updates if anything changes

Hey Evan,

I know that tingling, and mine is most certainly connected to a spine injury. Do you have health insurance? Get enrolled now if you aren't and then make an appointment with an orthopedist specializing in the spine. An MRI isn't cheap but it does effectively image soft tissue, including discs, More power to your chiropractor friend, but you ought to get completely checked out to make sure you aren't dealing with a spine injury that can be readily targeted now with PT to avoid surgery later.

Yeah, I've got health insurance, too. I'm making an appointment with a generalist so they can send me to a specialist who will send me to anotherspecialist. And you know how that goes.

Anyway, its not somethign to be messed with, so I'll be saying hola to the docs.

Thanks

sorry, double post

A climber friend complained about tingling, turned out to be MS

Dude, lay off the Nitrous.

But seriously, you might have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome which can be cleared up with a few trips to a good massage therapist or chiropractor.

Definitely get worked-up for diabetes since that's one of the more common and serious yet treatable things that could be causing your symptoms. Otherwise, it's pretty much impossible to diagnose on-line by bunch of non-experts especially with very little detail. Make sure to take a list of everything you're taking/doing to your doc including vitamins. Really large doses of some B vitamins could cause similar symptoms for example as could some antibiotics (e.g. Flagyl) and other meds (e.g. Diamox) common to climbers and other outdoors-people.