- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist
- And together we are
the most famous physical therapist on the internet
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- All right.
We have Boneapart with us here today, Brad.
He's gonna help us demonstrate,
top three causes of tingling in your arm or hand.
- Right
- Now, this happens to all of us
at some point generally, right?
- Yeah. It's pretty typical.
- You get some numbness or tingling.
Numbness also fits into this category.
- Sure.
- You get some numbness or tingling in your arm.
And you're like, whoa, what is that?
- Right.
- We're gonna go over, there's a lot of causes
that probably could be, you know contributing to it.
But we're gonna go over top three
probably most common ones that we see.
- Sure.
- So basically what you have is
you have nerves coming out of your neck
and they're traveling down under the collarbone
into the arm and into the hand.
And we've represented that
by using this red theratube
- Right, so-
- This is a big thick nerve
- Right. Yeah.
So that is not at all the same as what is in your body.
But, it gives you the idea of where they run and-
- Where it travels.
When you're getting tingling or numbness,
somewhere along the path it's getting pinched
it's getting some pressure on the nerve.
And so these are the most three common areas where
you tend to get pressure.
Let's start off with the bottom actually here, Brad.
And probably one of the more common ones
is carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Right.
- And there's a band,
a ligament that goes across here, right across the nerve.
- Right, so that'd be like right here.
- Yep. and if you do a lot of work on the computer
and you're bending your wrist in a certain way
all day long, it's putting, it's narrowing up the tunnel
that the nerve is going through and you can get
inflammation in there
and it can start getting numbness
and tingling into the hand.
- Right.
Factory workers will get
that a lot of time, depending on their job.
- Yeah. A lot of gripping, a lot of typing,
a lot of anything where you're using the wrist a lot
- Repetitive motion,
- Right. - Yep.
- So where I'm gonna show you real quick
three tests you can do to see if it's carpal tunnel.
- Okay.
- We did a video on that,
but the first one is Phalen's test.
Remember that Brad?
- Yep. Squeeze it in there for
- Yep - 60 seconds.
What are you looking for by the way?
First off you're looking for
generally what you're gonna have numbness
or tingling in these fingers.
The first one, second, third and half of the fourth.
That's the ones that tend to be involved.
- Right. Half of this one means kind of
typically the inside we call the medial half.
- Yeah. Not half this way, half lengthwise.
- Right.
- And sometimes you're gonna see, if you've had it
for quite a while,
you're gonna see this is actually atrophy or gotten smaller.
- Right.
- Because it's been affected and your hand is weaker.
- Sure.
- So very quickly three tests.
You can do Phalen's test where you hold your hands,
your wrists like this,
- Right.
- For 60 seconds.
And you see if that starts to bring on the tingling.
- Yep.
- If so that could be it.
Second test would be, you're actually gonna go.
Right. Can you see this Lonnie, all right,
my hand pretty well?
There's a meaty part of the thumb right here.
And there's a meaty part of the hand right here
in between right here.
You can go ahead and tap on that.
And that if that starts giving you the tingling
and the numbness.
- [Brad] Yep.
- That's a percussion test or Tinels test
that might be mean you have carpal tunnel.
And the last one is
you can actually just put pressure on that area.
- Sure.
- And hold it for 60 seconds.
So very quickly, those are the things you can see to
if you have carpal tunnel.
All right.
The second one cause is
you're getting pinching somewhere up in here
- In the shoulder region?
- Yep. Shoulder or neck and that's in case it may be coming
from the neck.
With the neck the nerves are coming out
through some small holes.
You got another model here,
another spine. - yep
- [Bob] Okay. You got your pen.
- Yep. Can you get it clear Lonnie?
- [Bob] It's kinda always hard.
Let's take this one right here.
The small one.
- So this is the part of the neck, right in here.
- [Bob] He's facing me right now.
And these are nerve roots coming out the foraminal holes.
Now, if for some reason that hole has gotten smaller,
maybe from arthritis,
or there could be even a disc pushing on that nerve
or a piece of a disc pushing on that nerve,
all sorts of things could be causing
the pressure on that nerve.
And that's sending the pain down on the arm.
Pain and numbness and tingling.
- [Brad] Right. Yeah.
These nerves, they bundle up to form that big red one,
so to speak.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] We're not gonna get in a lot of detail on that.
- So if that's a neck problem
you're gonna have to treat the neck.
And then there's thoracic outlet syndrome.
We did a whole video on this, top three signs.
- Sure.
- And that often is getting,
pinching through the some of the muscles
as they come through the neck
and even a muscle down here, the pectoralis minor.
- Right. You've got the clavicle
and the first rib way up in here
that can cause some impingement in there.
- Yep. And one quick test for that.
We'll just show you one for a thoracic outlet is
called the Roos test.
You put your arms up in a 90 degree angle
90 degree at the shoulder.
- [Brad] Sure.
And you start (singing)
- The chicken dance, yeah.
So you're getting some movement here asking
for more blood flow because of the muscles.
And if you're getting a pinched
- Yep
- Sort of circulation up there
- You're gonna start seeing the symptoms again.
You're gonna start getting the pinch-
- And how long are you gonna do that, Bob?
- Well, it varies.
Some people say for 60 seconds,
some people say for 30 seconds,
I'd do it probably for 60 seconds.
- Right. If you're doing it 60 seconds and no symptoms
you probably don't have it.
- You're probably pretty good.
All right.
The last common reason, and this is probably
the most benign reason why people get it
you've heard about your funny bone.
Right? Right.
Well, there's a nerve
that goes right around by the funny bone,
which is on the inner arm here, inner elbow.
- Yep.
- And that's the ulnar nerve.
And so that's gonna often give you tingling
in these two fingers or on the side here
of the hand or in these two fingers.
- And it's usually, again, half of
this one - Half of this one, yeah.
- On the side and the full pinky finger.
- Yep. And quite often people say, ah
I'm starting to get some tingling,
and it's right in here and they're worried about it.
And all it is quite often is that they're sitting
and they're putting pressure on that elbow.
- Sure.
- We have people who are in a wheelchair.
- Yeah.
- They put, the surface is too hard
and they have it on there all day.
Or we have people that are working
on the computer again and they're raising
they're on a desk and they're doing that.
- Sure, yep.
- So it, all you have to do is, you know
take the pressure off that area.
And usually that's gonna go away right.
Then re simple one, right. - Reposition,
padding, cushion.
- And by the way
one last one too, that quite often people get is
they'll start getting tingling is
when they're on a desk that has kind of a sharp edge
and they lean their wrists on it.
- Sure.
- And they're using the keyboard.
That'll set you off too.
So, all right.
Those are the top three common reasons, Brad.
And just remember, we're not just pretty.
- We're pretty ugly, Bob.
We're pretty helpful.
- Well, pretty helpful. Sorry.
- So, yeah. Don't forget that.