Tingling in arms and handsTingling in arms and hands, also in the lower limbs and the head and neck are distinct signs of nerves under stress. One should not jump to conclusions of rare neurological diseases, but they do occur and we will discuss some later, but rather think of basics.
An aside. Neurological diseases strike fear into our hearts, and not without good reason, and images like this one below flash through our minds. Bad taste? Perhaps, but for the first time there have been some real break throughs in the prevention and possible treatment of serious illnesses like Motor Neuron Disease. Read further. The first thought that should go through your mind should you begin to experience tingling, is one of adequate rest. Are you getting enough sleep? When did you last take a holiday? Have you been working too hard, or watching too many thrillers on TV? Or long hours trolling the net?
"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth." -Bonnie Friedman
The second thought concerns the B vitamin group. They are vitally involved in healthy nerves, preventing tingling in arms and hands, and legs and feet. Any deficiency will cause nerve degeneration. One such condition is called Pernicious Anemia, a deficiency of vitamin B12. Perhaps a B complex supplement? Jabs in the butt have been shown to be beneficial. Chat to your doctor. Obviously a B vitamin deficiency means aspects of the diet are lacking. (There is a rare condition is which B12 is not well absorbed, no matter how much you eat, but we'll ignore that for the time being.) For more info about foods that you should be consuming for B vitamins, to prevent tingling in arms and hands, and elsewhere,
click here.
A third thought concerns an irritated nerve in your spine, or even after it emerges from your spine. There are hundreds of possible causes, but these three webpages will give you some idea of what I am talking about. For information about possible causes of tingling in arms and hands, and elsewhere, click here. And now for a bit of science. Perhaps not your strong point, but it's interesting. Stick with me! SPINAL CORDThis is a cross-section of your spinal cord. Ignore the little bits of details, but see two parts of the cord:
Below you can see how it looks in situ in the spine. Now you can see the nerves coming in and out from of the spine, supplying the tissues of the body. They glide through a small gap in the spine called a foramen. Again, the one at the top, the sensory nerve brings information in to the cord, and that at the bottom, the motor nerve, sends information to the muscles. This is where the so-called Peripheral Nervous System begins. (as compared to the Central Nervous System, the brain and spinal cord) It is with this foramen where chiropractors work, nerves being irritated by either a facet joint injury, or a disc joint, both in close proximity to the mixed nerve in the foramen. More regularly we see tingling in arms and hands, and legs, but weakness occurs too if the motor nerve is injured.
Guillain-Barre SyndromeIf you live in a city of 100 000 people, then one person will this year get GBS. Fairly rare I think you will agree, so don't start assuming that the tingling you are experiencing is caused by GBS!It's not known what causes GBS but it usually starts after a viral infection. Heavy sport while infected has been implicated. It can also be caused by vaccinations, still a very controversial subject in chiropractic circles, and has been reported after surgery. It is a devastating, life threatening illness, from which victims usually spontaneously recover. It strikes both the sensory and motor parts of these peripheral nerve roots, so the cardinal signs are sudden onset of tingling in arms and hands and legs, usually starting in the legs, and then quite profound weakness. For the science bofs, this is a Lower Motor Neuron condition, so the reflexes are diminished, bilaterally. Since it may affect breathing, it can be life threatening. For more detailed information, click here. More about PERNICIOUS ANAEMIAPernicious Anaemia was a fatal disease until about a century ago.Bizarre. The very smart doctor who worked this out, cured his patients by regurgitating his own digestive juices, and feeding it to his patients! Pernicious Anaemia too causes tingling in arms and hands, but it's a whole different kettle of fish. Firstly, the cause is different, a vitamin B-12 deficiency. Whilst this can be a dietary deficiency, especially for Vegans who eat absolutely no foods from animal sources, but more usually it is caused by repeated stomach disturbances leading to a chronic gastritis. For more about indigestion and heartburn,
click here.
Take the Alzheimer's Test. How many fff's do you see?FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...
A bit more SCIENCE, I'm afraid!We mentioned above the white matter in the spinal cord where the long bundles of nerves to and from the brain are found. Pernicious Anaemia affects two of them because Vitamin B-12 is essential for the building blocks of these nerves.
In the next picture, can you see those columns of white matter with the green dots? They are the so-called Posterior Columns that carry four very important nerve impulses to the brain, viz the ability to feel
All of this is lost in Pernicious Anaemia which is one of the reasons why the patient experiences tingling in arms and hands.
Actually, it's three different tracts. Makes no difference. Because they emerge from the Medullary Pyramids in the brain, a lesion of the cortico-spinal tract is called 'pyramidal'. Probably a bit of useless information for you so just forget it. Perhaps if you are a chiropractic student, rememember that a pyramidal lesion causes spastic weakness.
Can you see why a stroke (just one of many conditions that can affect the Cortico-spinal tract) produces weakness on the opposite side of the body? Now, in the picture below, can you see the cell body of the motor neuron? (in the grey matter), and its Anterior Root (aka Ventral Root) going down to the muscle? This is what that bastard virus polio attacks. So the victim of polio would experience weakness rather than tingling in arms and hands and legs. But weakness of a quite different kind. When a cell body in Anterior Horn (in the grey matter) is attacked one gets a different sort of weakness, called flaccid paralysis. Think of the difference between someone with a stroke (spastic paralysis) and another with polio or Guillain-Barre (flaccid paralysis). Quite different, eh?
AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS (ALS)ALS is a particularly nasty disease because, unlike Guillain-Barre it doesn't spontaneously resolve, nor like Pernicious Anaemia can it be cured (not yet, anyway) and unlike Polio which strikes, leaves its mark and move on, ASL just progresses. When the diagnosis is made, the patient finds their daily life torpedoed and their most fundamental expectations about life blown to smithereens.It's not usually hereditary (it is in 10% of cases). If you live that city of 100 000 people, two will get it this year. They will both die, usually within about three years, probably because they can't breathe. The muscles just stop working. ALS is horrid because it not only attacks the cell body of the motor neuron (same as polio does), but it also attacks the Corticospinal tract that brings info from the brain to the ventral motor cell body. Double motor wammy. The result is that ALS produces a bizarre mixture of signs. Weakness and wasting of muscles, muscle twitches and cramps, and increased reflexes. For the bofs, Upper Motor Neuron signs (because the Corticospinal Tract is damaged) and Lower Motor Neuron signs (because the cell body of the motor neuron is damaged). The end result - severe paralysis. Please note. Many of these signs occur in otherwise normal people. The twitching, cramping, etc. associated with ALS are the result of a dying muscle, therefore these symptoms without clinical weakness or atrophy of an affected muscle is likely not ALS. Because you have cramps in a calf muscle does not mean you are about to get a severe neurological disease! That on its own is usually caused by a mineral deficiency, perhaps zinc or magnesium, or another mineral. ALS may start with weakness but not tingling in arms and hands, and clumsiness (such as in doing up a button) or in the legs, in which case victims begin to stumble; or in the face - usually first affecting the voice and later swallowing - and finally the trunk muscles so breathing becomes difficult. This is the usual cause of death. Lou GehrigALS first hit the headlines when a very famous American baseball player contracted the disease. It usually starts around 40-50 years old. If you've seen the film, you will not have forgotten how Lou wacked the bottom of a bottle of tomato sauce and splattered the whole table.There is still no known cure or cause for Lou Gehrig's disease(ALS). Is it like polio and Guillain-Barre, a virus? Probably not. However, just this year 2008, there have been some extremely interesting developments into the causes of ALS, and with what is known as a Ketogenic diet for a cure. RESEARCH
A bit of HistoryIn the 1920's an American chiropractor /osteopath, Dr Conklin postulated that epilepsy was caused by toxic chemicals in the brain, and put patients on long fasts of up to three weeks. Pretty extreme, I think you will agree, but the results were impressive, and despite his critics, considerable interest ensued.This produces a state known as ketosis, in which the body is forced to derive energy from body protein and fat in the absence of any dietary calories. Exactly how ketosis helps epilepsy is still not known, and much research is currently being done. Then the Mayo clinic started a treatment program, less severe than fasting, which produced similar effects with ketone bodies. The diet was very low in carbohydrate, with adequate protein for growth, and high in fat. It too produced convincing results with epileptic children. Interest then waned as anti-convulsive drugs started coming on to the market, and interest in Ketogenic diets lessened to the extent that it was almost non-existent. However, some clinics continued the use of the Ketogenic diet, one of which was the Johns Hopkins clinic. What really got the ball rolling was enormous interest generated by the successful treatment of Charlie Abrahams, son of a famous Hollywood producer, who despite medication suffered from uncontrollable seizures. Charlie's father then produced a film, First, Do No Harm, featuring Meryl Streep. Roughly 30% of children on the ketogenic diet had either no seizures, or they were 90% lessened. Most remain well controlled after returning to a 'normal' diet. The rest is history. The surge in interest in the Ketogenic diet, not just for seizures but for all neurological diseases soared. ConclusionsMuch of this confirms what we already know. A diet high in starches, particularly simple carbohydrates like sugar, may be extemely toxic to the body.Secondly, that nerves are made primarily of fat, and that many of these diseases have to do with fat metabolism. Interestingly, on this high fat Ketogenic diet, the children did not get fat. In fact, they lost weight. The children of Europe and America are not fat simply because they eat too much fat, but too much starch and sugar. A diet rich in 'good' fats is extremely beneficial to the body. Where the research is now heading is whether long chain fatty acids are better, or mono-unsaturated fats, or ... and what are the best ratios, and sources, of these different oils. More fish oil? Or Avocados? More Olive oil or Evening Primrose oil? Cold pressed Sunflower ...Salvia Hispanica? Time will tell. Meantime, if a loved one starts with signs of a serious neurological disease, you know if which direction to guide them. Even Parkinsons is showing promising results. Hint This salad (without the tomato) would score high on the ketogenic diet. Perhaps add more Feta (or tuna) and plenty of olive oil.
Click here for an Olive garden salad recipe.
Strike Four WalkResearch costs money. Big money. The kind of research that cracks frontiers takes the best minds and highly sophisticated equipment.We started this page with a depressing picture of a skeleton. I've pondered whether it was in poor taste. However, the reality of these nasty neurological disease is that people for no obvious reason, get sick and die. On the hand, for the first time there is now hope for sufferers of diseases like ALS. And it's only because of top thinkers who are stretching their minds, hoping against hope that they will discover a way forwards to stretch out the lives of the sick. Strike Four is a team of walkers dedicated to support these researchers. Will you help them strike ALS out? For more information, click here. This page is still under construction. More will be added about tingling in arms and hands and feet and face. And about paralysis. LINKS
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