Many are familiar with this unpleasant sensation, when the
big toe is numb, a feeling of chilliness and tingling appear in it. Someone’s numbness can go away in a few minutes, if you just change the position of your legs, neither massage nor injections will help another. This is understandable: the causes and severity of such symptoms can vary greatly.
Why are my toes numb?
The reason can be simple to the point of banality: a person has served or has reclined his leg. With a change in posture and several kneading movements, blood supply in the vessels of the limbs is restored, and the feeling of numbness or goosebumps in the fingers passes. It may be in uncomfortable shoes. The bad habit of cross -legging is also one of the common reasons why the toe goes numb. By the way, this habit is harmful in itself: in this position, the veins are compressed, the blood flow is disturbed, which can provoke the appearance of varicose veins in the legs and inguinal region.
Discomfort in the limbs can be caused by a number of diseases. In the first place in the frequency of manifestations is osteochondrosis of the spine. The big toe is often numb in case of a hernia of the intervertebral disc. All these are links of the same chain: blood supply to the tissues of the spine is disturbed, nerve roots in the lumbar region are impaired, painful symptoms radiate to the leg in the thigh or foot. The medical name for such manifestations is radiculoneuritis. Such a serious disease as
spinal tuberculosis is not excluded
.
One of the dangerous causes is metabolic disorder.
Blood supply to the limbs is difficult when metabolic processes in the body fail. So, in diabetes mellitus, one of the alarming symptoms of neglect of the disease may be precisely the numbness in the legs that is repeated with different frequency. If the toe grows numb, gets colder, loses sensitivity, this may be a signal of tissue necrotization, and this is one of the most dangerous complications of diabetes. That is why endocrinologists recommend that patients at the very first stages pay special attention to their feet: daily warm baths, massage with olive oil or with a special foot cream. Almost always, such symptoms appear if a person begins gout. The possibility of arthrosis cannot be ruled out.
How to treat?Banal advice: if the toe is numb, you should first go to the doctor. A visit to a neurologist is necessary, since spinal problems are in his competence. When there is a suspicion of diabetes mellitus, and even more so if this diagnosis has already been confirmed, an urgent need to contact your doctor-endocrinologist and describe all the symptoms, take tests. An x-ray of a diseased finger can clarify a lot. One thing is clear: you can’t leave these signals unattended in any case, just as relying on the eternal “and so it will pass” and self-medication.
Although the use of folk methods as auxiliary no one denies. Of course, warm foot baths with salt, decoctions of medicinal herbs, and essential oils help. Rubbing and compresses with alcohol tinctures, such as lilac flowers, horse chestnut fruits, are very useful. And finally, all doctors recommend independently perform a set of special exercises for the joints. All this along with drug treatment should give the desired result.