TINGLING IN FEET AND LEGS

Pain and Tingling Legs

(Keywords: TINGLING IN FEET AND LEGS, Tingling legs, chiropractic help, tingling in arms and hands )

Tingling in feet and legs is a sign that tissue is starved of either blood or nervous input. Sitting with your legs crossed, places pressure on the Femoral artery, starving the tissues in the lower legs of oxygen. The result? Tingling legs. The cure? Uncross your legs!

This website is not about vascular causes of tingling legs, but you might enjoy this short story from STONES IN MY CLOG by chiropractor Bernard Preston. Click on the picture.

More commonly, the source of the tingling is an irritated or frankly pinched nerve. It could be in the Brain or Spinal Cord, but more usually the site of injury is where the nerve emerges from the spine, in the buttock or the groin.

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Two main nerves supplying the legs...

1. SCIATIC NERVE

The sciatic nerve belongs the very lowermost part of your lumbar spine, coursing via the buttock to the leg and foot. SLUMP TEST for Sciatica is easy to do at home.

2. FEMORAL NERVE

The femoral nerve on the other hand emerges from rather higher in the lumbar spine, and courses through the groin to the top of the upper leg, and inner lower leg. However, the pinched nerve test for the Femoral nerve, unlike the Slump test for sciatica, is not easily done at home.

SCIATICA

S1 nerve root

It helps your chiropractor if you can tell him/her precisely where your tingling in feet and legs is. For example, does the tingling go to the side of your foot? However, whilst for 75% of people a sciatica from the L5-S1 joint will go down the back of the thigh and leg, and to the side of the foot, less commonly (see the yellow and green patterns) it may mimic a sciatica from the L4-L5 joint, and go down the side of the leg.

Thus, one can not be certain of which disc is effected by the dermatomal pattern. A careful physical examination of the spine is in order. Sometimes, because not uncommonly degenerative change occurs at several levels, an MRI is necessary to confirm with absolute certainty at which level the offending lesion is to be found that is causing tingling in feet and legs.

Irritated nerves in the lumbar spine by a

1. slipped disk ...
   
   
2. lumbar facet syndrome ...
   
   
3. CHIROPRACTIC HELP LUMBAR STENOSIS ...
   
   

may cause

• tingling
• pain, and
• possibly weakness in the legs and feet.

The most common sciatica refers to the outside of the foot and the small toe. If there is weakness you will have difficulty standing on one foot and raising your heel from the ground.

Try it! Hold onto a chair, stand on one leg and raise your heel repeatedly. You should be able to do it without any sign of fatigue or shaking of the lower leg. An S1 sciatica may make this difficult.

In my opinion, everyone should be doing some gentle lumbar exercises, because we all sit too much, and almost the whole population will experience acute low back pain at some stage of their lives. But this is vitally important if you have tingling in the feet and legs. At CHIROPRACTIC TIPS you will find some suggestions on a few conservative exercises for your back. They only take 60 seconds, literally, in bed in the morning. For more information, click here: CHIROPRACTIC TIPS ...

Tapping on the Achilles tendon tests the integrity of the S1 nerve to determine if it could be the cause of tingling legs.

L5 nerve root

The L5 nerve root is most commonly affected by the L4-L5 disc joint, though the nerve emerges at one level lower. The tingling in feet and legs (and/or pain) is more commonly on the side of the lower leg, and the great toe, though it can affect the side of the thigh too.

If there is weakness, you will be unable to lift your great toe off the ground. This means that you may trip as you walk, as you foot isn't lifted properly in the swing phase. Is your leg tingling, and do you also have weakness?

L4 nerve root

The L4 nerve root is less commonly the cause of tingling in feet and legs and, when it does, it's a real bugger. In my experience it responds less well to manipulation, and better to flexion-distraction. It shares slips with both the sciatic and the femoral nerves.

The knee jerk reflex may be reduced, and weakness can affect the major flexor of the knee, the Quadriceps muscle. The result is a profound limp, and weakness on stair-climbing, as well as a leg tingling.

FEMORAL NEURITIS

This page is quite long enough, so we will cover the FEMORAL NERVE on a different page. Less frequently troublesome than the Sciatic nerve, the Femoral nerve typically causes pain in the groin and front part of the thigh, and weakness of the Quadriceps muscle. So does hip arthritis, so careful examination is paramount...

Meralgia Paresthetica

Then there are some lesser nerves from the lumbar spine. One such is the Lateral Femoral Cutaneous nerve. Irritated in the upper lumbar spine and pinched in the groin can cause pain and tingling in the upper thigh. Whilst its generally considered a "medical" condition, I have had great success in treating it. Very occasionally it can be caused by an infection or mass in the abdomen. Fortunately rarely, the usual site is in the groin and jointly the upper lumbar spine. Read more … UPPER LEG PAIN

• Meralgia Paresthetica ...

ARTHRITIS IN LOWER BACK

Any degenerative changes in the joints in the lower spine can have a direct effect on the nerve roots emerging from the spine. Arthritis in lower back however is considered by many in the medical community to be an untreatable disease, except perhaps by anti inflammatory drugs or even more radical lumbar surgery. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the case at the page above (arthritis in lower back) you can read how an elderly woman with advanced arthritis gained very significant relief of pain from Chiropractic Help.

However, prevention of TINGLING IN FEET AND LEGS is obviously better than a cure. Everyone suffering from chronic lower back pain should spend two minutes EVERY morning before getting out of bed doing this simple spinal stenosis exercise ...

Piriformis Syndrome

A small muscle in the buttock can entrap the sciatic nerve causing a tingling in feet and legs. Because of its attachment on the sacrum there is often an associated sacroiliac joint subluxation...

Read more: PIRIFORMIS SYNDROME ...

DIABETES

Experts say that WALKING HELPS HEAL DAMAGED NERVES

The pain and tingling in legs and feet experienced by up to half of diabetic patients is caused by high blood sugar which damages the nerve. Since walking, cycling, swimming etc improve the blood circulation in the lower limbs it helps the oxygenation of the nerves.

One profound study proved that diabetics who walk regularly don't get diabetic neuropathy. As long as they keep walking. That's big! The research also found that it slowed the progression of any existing neuropathy.

Walking also is one of the simplest ways of reducing blood sugar, that's key because it's the increased blood sugar that is the problem in the first place.

Walking benefits in the outdoors releases the feel-good endorphins from the pineal gland in the brain, increasing our tolerance of pain.

B vitamins, particularly B12, are also known to help nerve pain. WALKING BENEFITS ...

INSUFFICIENT BLOOD

All living tissue needs oxygen, nutrients and the removal of waste products. Yet another cause of tingling in feet and legs is a condition called atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.

Yes, you guessed it. Very few smokers escape this nasty furring of the arteries, and it's far worse if their cholesterol is raised, or they are diabetic. Atherosclerosis is the reason why diabetic smokers lose toes and go blind - tissues starved of oxygen. Tingling legs is the norm...In the leg, atherosclerosis reduces the blood flow so that the muscles don't get enough oxygen. When called to exercise, the muscles begin to tingle and hurt due to a condition called Intermittent Claudication.

• PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF ATHEROSCLEROSIS ....

Tingling in arms and hands

Likewise, tingling in the upper limbs is caused by an irritation of the nerve somewhere along its course from the neck to the hand. The so-called DOUBLE CRUSH syndrome is now well recognised - in conditions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in which the nerve is trapped in the wrist, there is also an underlying impingement in the neck. How otherwise could chiropractic possibly help such conditions as CTS, tennis elbow, frozen shoulder ...

• Go from TINGLING IN FEET AND LEGS to TINGLING IN ARMS AND HANDS ...
• Return from Tingling in feet and legs to Chiropractic Help homepage...
  

INTERESTING LINKS

DIABETES OSTEOPOROSIS ...

COMMON MEDICAL CONDITIONS that may respond to Chiropractic.

DRINKING WATER ...

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