Pins and needles. We've all been there before. You know
that moment where you're sitting on the floor, cross-legged, enjoying yourself, having a great time
And you decide to get up. Go to the restroom.
And about 5 steps in, all of a sudden you feel like you're
walking on glass. If you're anything like me, you're overly dramatic about it, too.
You know, hopping around and making a show of it.
You're experiencing pins and needles or what a lot of people would say is your
leg has fallen asleep. In today's episode,
we're gonna figure out what's exactly going on with it. So
let's do this.
The first thing we need to do is discuss what pins
and needles really is. And it's real name is
called parasthesia. Now parasthesia kinda sounds
a little bit like paralysis and they do go hand and hand
because those individuals who do have some paralysis
will also be experiencing some level of parathesia.
Parathesia is just that which we
already know comes with pins and needles. Right? We get
numbness, tingling, stabbing,
burning. A lot of people even describe it as, like, this
static-y type of feeling. I know myself that's what, how I feel is this very static-y, just
crunchy type of, uh, sensation. And that's
parasthesia in general, but there's even two subsets of it.
You can have what's transient
or you can have chronic. Transient
is the one we're talking about today. And
this is one that is pretty short-lasting
and it's typically coming from some type of awkward posture
and pressure that you put onto the nerve itself.
Or maybe even the blood supplying it.
Chronic, on the other hand, this is obviously more long-lasting
and typically comes from damage or some type of
infection such as Lyme disease that's affecting
the nerve and causing these sensations to occur.
We're gonna spend our time, like I just mentioned, talking about transient.
So, let's say you're just
sitting cross-legged or you're
sitting, um, you're kind of crossing your legs in a
chair. Something along those lines and you're
gonna be putting pressure in the back of the
thigh right here. Cuz this is what we're looking at. You have a zoomed in
picture of the back of the knee and then we're seeing the
distal aspect or the farthest aspect
of the hamstrings. Now, there are three
hamstrings. We have the biceps femoris,
we have the semitendinosus,
and, this is pretty cool, you can see its long tendon here
and then we also have, just underneath it, the semimembranosus.
So there are three hamstrings
but what we want to look at is what's between them
and if you look closely, you might see these two
little tubes coming out. And if I kinda
bring them to the surface, you are looking at
the sciatic nerve
as it splits into two smaller nerves.
You see, the sciatic nerve is really two nerves
bundled together as one. And we can see them splitting here
into the common peroneal nerve
and the tibial nerve. The common peroneal would then
wrap around the head of the fibula and go to the side of the
leg, the lower leg, and the front of the lower leg
while the tibial nerve continues all the way down to the bottom of the
foot. And that's gonna be important, 'specially when
we start explaining the symptoms of parasthesia.
Alright? So let's say, again, that you're just in this cross-legged position
and you're just putting pressure. So even though this nerve is
still deep to the hamstrings, the constant
pressure that could be put on this is enough
that over time, the nerve kind of gets
a traffic jam. You could literally think that the signal
is not able to be sent so it
starts to shut down. And
that's why you experience this numbness. So if
the pressure that you're applying is significant enough you could be
affecting the blood vessels that are deep down that supply
the nerve to make it work, giving it oxygen
and energy in the form of glucose.
If you do that, the nerve just pretty much
shuts down. And when it shuts down,
obviously it can't send the proper signals.
That's parasthesia.
So you usually feel, oh no, my leg
is going numb. And then, what do you do? You get up,
and again, if you're like me, you're being overly dramatic
with this but all of a sudden as you restore blood supply
as you res- take the pressure off of the nerve itself
you could think of it as
rebooting. The whole thing just comes back
online. And as it comes back online, it just starts sending signal
after signal after signal, this rush of signals
and your brain interprets that
as pain or the static-y,
burning, stabby type of feeling. And you feel it all the way down,
right? It's gonna go down the lower leg and it's gonna even
go to the bottom of the foot. I know for me, again, it's like I'm standing on tacks or something like that.
Remember, I-I am being overly dramatic with this but
that pain is coming from the nerve rebooting.
That's what pins and needles are.
They are the nerve turning back on.
You turned it off.
You flipped the light switch, and it's letting you know
that you were applying significant
enough pressure and you were kind of, sort of harming it.
Now, if you did that long enough, you literally could create
long-lasting damage. But I think
most of us aren't going to be doing something like that.
At the same time, though, individuals who may not have
as much of a choice. Let's say someone who's in a wheel chair,
again, just because you may be paraplegic
or have some kind of issue with your legs
doesn't mean you've lost all feeling in all scenarios.
They could be
having that pressure and they could be feeling some really
intense pain and doing long-lasting damage. The
same could go for those who just
spend way too much time sitting or in
bed. You can just create the scenario yourself
and probably have a good idea as to what's going on.
But, there you go. Hopefully, that answers
your question as to what parasthesia or pins and needles are.
It's your nerve rebooting.