Have you started to experience tingling in your fingers in recent weeks? If so, it might serve as little more than a minor nuisance at first.
But if this tingling in your fingers keeps up, it might not be too long before you’re dealing with serious finger and hand pain. You might even find it’ll become almost impossible to work with tingling in your hands and fingers all the time.
For this reason, you should figure out what could be causing tingling in your fingers as soon as you can. It would also be worth exploring the different treatment options you’ll have to get this tingling feeling to go away.
In this article, we’re going to discuss what tingling in your fingers feels like, what could be causing it, and what steps you should take to treat it. It should help you eliminate tingling in your fingers and hands once and for all.
What Does Tingling in Your Hands Feel Like?
When you’re having tingling in your fingers, you’ll usually know it. It’s a pretty unmistakable sensation.
But just in case you aren’t sure whether or not you have tingling in your fingers, let’s kick things off by talking about what it’ll feel like. It’s going to leave you with a “pins and needles” feeling in your fingers and possibly your hands and wrists as well.
In some instances, you’ll feel tingling in your fingers for a few minutes before it goes away. But in others, you might find that your fingers will tingle for hours on end without any relief. This is when you’ll need to be worried about what might be going on.
What Causes Tingling in Your Fingers?
The tricky thing about feeling tingling in your fingers is that it isn’t always going to be clear what’s causing it. There are a number of different issues you may be having that can lead to you feeling tingling sensations in your fingers.
As soon as you start to experience tingling in your fingers, you should try to get to the bottom of what might be causing it. It’ll put you in a position to seek the necessary treatment for it right away.
Nerve Compression
There are several large nerves in your hands. There are also lots of different nerve endings in your fingers.
If any of the nerves in your hands are ever compressed, it could leave you with fingers that will tingle. You might find that you’ll inadvertently compress the nerves in your hands and fingers by doing something as simple as sleeping in a strange position.
If this is the reason why your fingers are tingling, they should stop tingling within just a few minutes in most cases. Once you wake up and you’re not compressing your nerves anymore, things will usually go back to normal.
If, however, nerve compression is caused by something like a finger injury, it’ll be a different story. In this instance, you might find that your fingers will keep on tingling until you do something to address the problem at hand.
Nerve Damage
Nerve compression is normally not that big of a deal. But nerve damage can lead to more serious issues that can cause tingling in your fingers.
There are certain conditions, including peripheral neuropathy and diabetes, that can lead to you suffering nerve damage. When this happens, you might have tingling in your fingers, hands, and even feet all the time.
A problem like this won’t just go away on its own. You’ll need to talk to a doctor about any suspected nerve damage you might be having and ask them what the best course of action would be.
Poor Circulation
If you find that you’re having tingling in your fingers, it could mean that there simply isn’t enough blood getting to them. Some people have poor circulation and will pay the price for it in the form of tingling in different parts of their bodies.
If plaque has built up in your arteries, it can lead to a condition called atherosclerosis that can take a serious toll on your blood circulation. Your heart could be incapable of sending enough blood to your hands and fingers, and it may make them tingle at times.
This is yet another scenario in which you’ll need to consult your doctor to see what you can do to change this situation. If you continue to struggle with circulation issues, it could lead to even more problems with the parts of your body that aren’t getting the blood they need.
Alcohol Use Disorder
Have you been diagnosed with alcohol use disorder? Or do you believe you might have this type of disorder?
Either way, you should know, it’s another thing that can cause tingling in your fingers. Your body is going to have a tough time absorbing enough thiamine when you drink alcohol in excess on an almost daily basis. This can result in nervous system problems.
If you allow alcohol use disorder to get too out of control, you might even find yourself coming face-to-face with health complications like Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome or Beriberi. They can both result in you having tingling in your hands.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
All of the things we’ve touched on thus far can cause tingling in your fingers. But if you spend all your time sitting at a desk working on a computer or if you tackle other tasks that involve you using your hands at work, the most likely culprit for tingling in your fingers might be carpal tunnel syndrome.
Carpal tunnel pain stems from the compression of the median nerve that’s in your wrist. It can result in tingling in your fingers, especially in your palms and fingers.
If your hands hurt just about every day and your fingers are tingling non-stop, carpal tunnel syndrome is likely to blame. You’ll need to seek treatment for it ASAP to make the pain associated with it go away.
How Can You Diagnose What’s Causing Tingling in Your Fingers?
Because there are so many issues that can cause tingling in your fingers, it’ll be important for you to speak with your doctor about what could be behind them. They’ll often choose to put you through a series of tests to narrow down the potential causes to the one they think is giving you problems.
Here are some of the steps a doctor might take to try to figure out why you’re experiencing tingling in your fingers:
- A physical exam that will usually involve a neurological exam
- Routine blood tests to take a look at things like your vitamin and hormone levels
- X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, and other imaging tests
- Nerve function exams that’ll test how your muscles react when nerves in your body are stimulated
- A closer look at your medical history and the medical history of your family members
In some situations, your doctor will be able to nail down exactly what’s wrong with your tingling fingers and/or hands after running just one or two tests. In others, they’ll need to perform a battery of tests before providing you with a definitive diagnosis for the tingling in your fingers.
How Can You Treat Tingling in Your Fingers?
If you ever have tingling in your hands and/or fingers accompanied by numbness, dizziness, or even paralysis, you might not be able to delay treatment. These could be signs that you’re having a heart attack, a stroke, or another serious medical episode.
But if you don’t experience any other symptoms along with tingling in your fingers and/or hands, you should be able to take a more measured approach to treatment. Your doctor will be able to come up with a treatment plan designed to target the tingling you’re feeling so that you can get it to stop.
Here are several treatment options you’ll have when you’re having tingling in your fingers.
Medication
If your doctor believes you might be experiencing tingling in your fingers because of blood circulation issues, they may choose to prescribe you a medication. They’ll choose one that’ll help you with circulation problems so that you can get more blood to your hands and fingers.
They might also decide to pick a medication that’ll get another health condition you’re having under control. If, for example, you have diabetes that isn’t being treated properly, they can help you get your hands on the medications you’ll need to deal with it. It could stop tingling in your fingers quickly.
Physical Therapy
If your doctor thinks a finger injury or a hand injury could be the cause of the tingling in your fingers and hands, physical therapy might be a better option for you. This may help your injury to heal and stop the tingling in your fingers and hands.
Many doctors will opt to put physical therapy to the test before they consider surgery. It’s almost always worth trying it out to see what kinds of results it can produce.
In some instances, physical therapy can promote healing in parts of your body that might be tingling and get it to stop. At the same time, it might also prove to be unsuccessful and show a doctor that more aggressive treatment methods will be necessary.
Surgery
There may be times when the tingling in your fingers will get to be so serious that you’ll have no choice but to undergo surgery. This is often the case when it comes to carpal tunnel pain.
If you catch carpal tunnel syndrome early on enough, you might be able to avoid having surgery done to fix it. But surgery might be inevitable if your carpal tunnel pain gets to be out of control.
What Is the Best Way to Treat Carpal Tunnel Pain?
If your doctor tells you you should seriously consider having surgery done to prevent carpal tunnel pain from impacting your life, you might be nervous about this. But you should know that carpal tunnel treatments have come a long way in recent years.
When you visit the Hand Surgery Specialists of Texas, we can talk to you about the no stitch procedure that we can perform for those struggling with carpal tunnel pain. It is, hands down, the best carpal tunnel treatment in Houston, TX.
Here are the benefits of having this no-stitch procedure done versus other carpal tunnel surgery options:
- It’s minimally invasive and will only involve a half-inch cut
- It’ll typically take only about 10 minutes
- It has a 98% success rate
- It’ll cut down on your recovery time
But best of all, this procedure should make the tingling in your fingers go away fast. You’ll wonder why you didn’t opt to have this procedure done so much sooner once you see the results.
You’ll be able to get back to work quickly without the pain you’ve been dealing with in the past. It’ll change your life and give you back the sense of freedom that carpal tunnel syndrome can sometimes take away.
Contact Us to Treat the Tingling in Your Fingers
Unfortunately, many people will put off doing anything when they’re having tingling in their fingers and hands. They’ll cross their fingers and hope that this problem goes away on its own.
It might go away over time if it just started to affect you. But if you’ve had tingling in your fingers for as long as you can remember, you might not be able to get rid of it without professional help.
The Hand Surgery Specialists of Texas would love to show you how easy it can be to put carpal tunnel pain in the past. Call us today to schedule a consultation.
