Numbness and Tingling? Here’s How a Chiropractor Can Help

When you feel numbness and tingling that won’t go away, this can cause you justifiable concern. There are a number of issues that can cause numbness and tingling, some of which are very serious, and some of which are completely benign.

In this article, let’s take a deeper look at this issue of numbness and tingling and examine how chiropractic care can help patients who experience these symptoms.

What Causes Numbness and Tingling?

As mentioned previously, decreased sensation can occur for a variety of reasons. Below, you’ll find some of the most common causes of numbness and tingling in the body.

Temporary Numbness and Tingling

Undoubtedly, you’ve experienced the sensation of having your arm or leg “fall asleep”. While this can sometimes be alarming for a few seconds or a minute, these symptoms usually resolve very quickly.

Usually, this form of numbness occurs due to decreased blood flow to an area of the body. For example, if you have your arm above your head for a long period of time, it can be hard for the heart to continue to pump blood that far against gravity. Therefore, the decreased blood flow deprives the nerves of the hand of nutrients, leading to numbness and or tingling.

Once you start moving your arm again or lower it below the level of your heart, your symptoms will usually resolve almost instantaneously. 

Long-Term Numbness and Tingling

Sometimes, nerve symptoms such as numbness will persist for long periods, or they will occur at regular intervals in response to triggers.

If this happens to you, and you don’t know why, it’s worth looking into these symptoms with the help of a qualified clinician. Long-term numbness can occur due to various disease processes, such as diabetes. In fact, patients with diabetes will often need to wear large, protective shoes because they sometimes can’t even feel it when they step on a nail!

These long-term numbness issues are usually very hard to resolve, but some treatment options can help patients with these symptoms live normal, happy, and healthy lives.

Treatments for Long-Term Numbness and Tingling

Depending on the specific nature of your symptoms, there are a variety of treatments that may help. Let’s take a look!

Exercise

As simple as it may sound, getting up and moving for a few hours every day can help immensely with numbness and tingling. These symptoms are usually due to decreased blood flow or nerve problems. Therefore, by getting the blood pumping through exercise, you can often improve your symptoms.

Many professional groups recommend a minimum of 150 minutes of cardiovascular exercise every week in order to achieve the best health outcomes. This can take the form of simply walking for 30 minutes, 5 days a week.

Nutrition

The food you consume fuels everything your body does every day. Therefore, modifying your diet can often help to address many different health issues.

Nutrition is a very complex subject, and there is little agreement in the field about the “best” diet for different medical conditions. However, by trying out some unique food plans, most patients can identify foods that help their symptoms and foods that exacerbate their symptoms. From there, they can simply change their diet based on these results. 

Chiropractic Care

Chiropractors use treatments known as spinal adjustments to push the vertebral column into perfect alignment. In doing so, they may be able to alleviate some of the numbness and tingling that patients have had to deal with for many weeks, months, or even years.

Have you been dealing with tingling and numbness in an area of your body? Chiropractic care can help! Book your appointment with your Noblesville chiropractor at Anchor Health Chiropractic today!