Tingling in hands and feet is an extremely common and bothersome symptom. Paresthesia is the medical term for this, which in addition to tingling, can feel like pricks, numbness, or burning under the skin.
The tingling sensation can often be benign and temporary. For example, it might happen when there’s weight or pressure on an arm under your head as you sleep. Or it could result from pressure on your nerves when you cross your legs for too long. In either case, the “pins and needles” effect, usually painless, is soon relieved by removing the pressure that caused it.
However, sometimes tingling in your hands and feet can be severe, episodic, or chronic. It can also come with other symptoms, such as pain, itching, numbness, and muscle wasting. In these cases, tingling may be a sign of nerve damage from causes as varied as traumatic or repetitive stress injuries,
This type of nerve damage is known as peripheral neuropathy because it affects nerves distant from the brain and spinal cord, often in the hands and feet. There are more than 100 types of peripheral neuropathy. Over time, the condition can worsen, making you less mobile and even disabled. More than 20 million Americans, most of them older adults, are estimated to have peripheral neuropathy.
It’s important to get medical help right away for any tingling in your hands and feet that’s lasted a while. The earlier the cause of your tingling is found and brought under control, the less likely you are to develop long-term problems.
Causes of Tingling in Hands and Feet
Diabetes is one of the most common causes of peripheral neuropathy, accounting for about 30% of cases. In diabetic neuropathy, tingling and other symptoms often first develop in both feet, then go up the legs, and subsequently affect both hands and go up the arms. About two-thirds of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of nerve damage. In many cases, these symptoms are the first signs of diabetes.
In another 30% of peripheral neuropathy cases, the cause is unknown, or “idiopathic.” The remaining 40% of cases have a variety of causes that produce tingling in the upper limbs, lower limbs, or both.
The following conditions typically cause tingling or numbness in feet, toes, and legs:
- Peroneal nerve palsy, also called fibular neuropathy, comes from a damaged nerve that travels down your leg. It affects the outside of the leg or the top of the foot and may cause your foot to drop.
- Tarsal tunnel syndrome is the foot version of carpal tunnel syndrome. In this, the nerve that runs along the inside of your ankle is compressed.
- Sciatica is caused by herniated disks in the lower back that can compress nerves and cause tingling in the legs.
Tingling in both hands and feet
- Anxiety. It can trigger tingling in your hands, fingers, feet, and toes as well as on your face and around your mouth.
- Fibromyalgia. This chronic pain disorder can cause tingling in both sets of limbs.
- Cervical spondylosis. This typically occurs as the disks in your neck begin to wear with age and compress the nerves in your spinal column. Cervical spondylosis can cause numbness and tingling in your arms, legs, hands, and feet.
- Systemic diseases. These include kidney disorders, liver disease, vascular damage, blood-related diseases, amyloidosis, connective tissue disorders, chronic inflammation, hormonal imbalances (including hypothyroidism), as well as cancers and benign tumors that impinge on nerves.
- Vitamin deficiencies. You need vitamins E, B1, B6, B12, and niacin for healthy nerves. A B12 deficiency, for example, can lead to pernicious anemia, an important cause of peripheral neuropathy. But too much B6 can cause tingling in the hands and feet.
- Alcoholism. People with alcoholism are more likely to lack thiamine or other important vitamins because of poor dietary habits, a common cause of peripheral neuropathy. It’s also possible that alcoholism itself can cause nerve damage, a condition some researchers call alcoholic neuropathy.
- Toxins. These include heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, mercury, and thallium, and some industrial and environmental chemicals. They also include certain medications, especially chemotherapy drugs used for lung cancer, as well as some antiviral and antibiotic drugs.
- Infections. These include Lyme disease, shingles (varicella zoster), cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr, herpes simplex, and HIV and AIDS.
- Autoimmune diseases. These include chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, Guillain-Barre syndrome, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.
- Inherited disorders. These include a group that may have sensory and motor symptoms; the most common type is known as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
- Injury. Often related to trauma, nerves can be compressed, crushed, or damaged in other ways, resulting in nerve pain. Examples include nerve compression caused by a dislocated bone.
- Multiple sclerosis. The disease causes your body’s immune system to attack the fatty myelin sheath around nerve fibers in your brain and spine. Tingling in the hands and feet is a common symptom.
- Medications. Certain medicines as well as street drugs, can cause tingling.
Credit: webmd
