Numbness of the thumb is manifested by unpleasant sensations of loss of flexibility and sensitivity of the limb. It happens that it is accompanied by burning, tingling, chilliness, and tightening of the skin. Numbness occurs when the passage of nerve impulses to the brain from receptors is disrupted. When changing body position, sensitivity usually returns quickly. However, when, after changing a position, unpleasant sensations do not leave a person, this indicates the presence of a serious illness.
Dr. Ignatiev's clinic specializes in issues of numbness of the big toe. In a short time, doctors get rid of the annoying problem.
First of all, the legs become numb due to impaired innervation. This is called paresthesia.
The main cause of numbness in the toes is very likely to be osteochondrosis. If you pay insufficient attention to the treatment of this disease, you can get various complications affecting the musculoskeletal system. Since the spine underlies the entire structure of the body, it requires timely treatment. Osteochondrosis is characterized by narrowed intervertebral spaces and pinched nerves. Scoliosis, radiculitis, and intervertebral hernias can cause numbness of the big toe.
Metabolic disorders can lead to a feeling of muteness in the thumb . A disease such as gout is especially common. It affects the joints of the big toes and causes numbness.
Disorders in the functioning of the arterial vessels located in the legs can contribute to the formation of various unpleasant sensations. Inflammation of the vascular walls leads to the formation of deposits, which disrupts the natural blood circulation of the legs. Carpal tunnel syndrome, along with nerve injuries, can lead to numbness in the big toe.
There are other diseases that can cause numbness:
Numbness of the thumb occurs as a result of impaired blood flow in a specific part of the body or due to nerve damage. Impaired sensitivity can be the result of infection, injury, inflammation, or other inflammatory processes. In a huge number of cases, numbness of the thumb is associated with diseases that are not life-threatening, but sometimes it indicates the presence of a tumor or stroke. Numbness in the thumb is often associated with pain and is accompanied by sensory disturbances, tingling and burning. Depending on the underlying cause, the numbness may disappear quickly, for example during sleep if you place your hand behind your head. Then the unpleasant sensations disappear after several movements of the limb. Chronic numbness of the thumb over a long period of time indicates damage to a certain nerve due to, for example, multiple sclerosis or diabetes. Also, chronic numbness indicates a pinched nerve, as with carpal tunnel syndrome. In any situation, numbness that lasts several minutes deserves close attention from medical personnel.
Symptoms that accompany numbness:
There are a number of symptoms that often accompany numbness and can be signs of serious conditions. These features should be taken into account by doctors, since it is often necessary to provide emergency medical care and perform therapeutic procedures.
These are the symptoms:
Based on the history of the disease, the collected anamnesis, physical examination, study of symptoms, he prescribes a general examination plan. It necessarily includes instrumental and laboratory techniques. High-precision, modern methods are of great help in making the correct diagnosis in a short time and identifying the causes of numbness of the big toe. Usually an MRI of the spine, ultrasound of the vessels of the lower extremities, and x-rays are prescribed.
Dr. Ignatiev’s clinic works in the treatment of diseases of the spine and the entire musculoskeletal system. Specialists with many years of experience and high qualifications conduct thorough research. We have modern digital equipment that can detect hidden lesions in the spine. Today, doctors use their own proprietary treatment methods, which allows for recovery much faster.
Hands play a fairly significant role in a person’s life. The full functioning of the limbs depends on the health of each finger.
Many people do not pay attention to the discomfort in their hands, but this seemingly harmless condition can cause a serious joint disease, such as arthritis of the thumb of the right or left hand.
Why does my finger hurt? People often turn to a rheumatologist with this problem. The causes of pain can be not only degenerative changes in joint tissues and arthritis, but also other diseases.
According to medical statistics, diseases on the fingers of women appear much more often than in representatives of the stronger half of humanity. As arthritis progresses, the shape of the hands and fingers gradually changes. The joints become inactive, degenerative changes occur in them, which cause enormous troubles of a physiological and psychological nature.
The first sign of the disease is pain at the base of the thumb. Due to the loss of elasticity of the joint tissue, the problem can lead to disability. Unfortunately, arthritis is a chronic disease and cannot be completely cured.
But this does not mean at all that if the joint of the thumb hurts due to arthritis, this fact should be taken as a death sentence. Timely treatment can significantly reduce pain and stop the development of the inflammatory process.
But first, the doctor must accurately determine the location of the pain, the causes of which can be very different.
If the thumbs on the right or left hand hurt, this may indicate that there are functional disorders in the articular tissues of the upper extremities. Pain in the injured joint increases with changing weather conditions and may indicate the development of rapidly progressing rheumatoid arthritis, which is often triggered by severe hypothermia of the hands.
The finger also hurts with gout, but this disease is characterized by damage to the big toe of the left or right foot. Pain in the hands with gouty arthritis occurs much less frequently, as does gout itself in the hands.
In addition, there are infectious, septic and psychological arthritis, in which the joints of the upper extremities also hurt. A visual examination of the patient cannot provide an answer about the true nature of arthritis.
Therefore, to diagnose pathology, a comprehensive examination is always prescribed, which includes laboratory tests and instrumental research methods. Each disease is characterized by a specific pattern of pain and the mechanism of its occurrence.
Rheumatoid arthritis changes not only the structure of the joint tissue, but also its appearance. In severe cases, even the pad of the finger suffers. The joint is surrounded by nodules, which after some time become dense and cause severe pain.
The extent to which a joint, for example, the left arm, and its tissue are affected is indicated by the frequency of pain and its intensity. If there is numbness in the carpal tunnel, this indicates the presence of Raynaud's syndrome. With this pathology, the upper limb often partially loses mobility.
When the joints of the fingers hurt, their swelling often occurs. The presence of this sign facilitates diagnosis, since an asymmetrical lesion indicates a high likelihood of developing psoriatic arthritis. This arthritis never affects one joint.
Psoriatic arthritis is characterized by the appearance of plaque-like plaques on the skin. Both signs can be observed simultaneously on all joints of the hands of the upper limbs.
Arthritis is often confused with osteomyelitis. This is due to the fact that the symptoms of both diseases are similar.
In both cases, the finger on the hand hurts greatly, turns red and swells.
Septic and infectious arthritis are similar; both of these diseases are accompanied by the following symptoms:
Arthritis needs to be treated long-term and patiently. In advanced situations, when conservative treatment methods are useless, the patient may require surgery. The operation to replace a joint with an artificial implant is called endoprosthetics.
The operation is a radical method and is prescribed only when the functionality of the joint is lost and the joint cannot be restored by conservative measures. Since arthritis deforms the hand and fingers, the limb takes on an unaesthetic appearance. The operation will eliminate this deficiency.
Endoprosthetics of hand joints, an operation aimed at:
Since the hand consists of multiple joints, endoprosthetics surgery comes in several types and is classified according to how it is performed.
A sedentary lifestyle, bad habits, injuries and diseases of the musculoskeletal system often lead to problems with the lower extremities, namely pain in the big toe. This problem should not be ignored, because if left untreated, the situation will only worsen and it will be very difficult to correct it.
If your big toe hurts, the causes of discomfort may be associated with the following pathologies and phenomena:
1. Gout. The etiology of this disease is a violation of metabolic processes in the body. Particles of uric acid, deposited in the joints, eventually destroy them completely. An attack of gout is a sharp, pressing pain in the bone near the big toe, usually occurring late at night. The skin on the affected area turns red and swells. Body temperature may rise. During the daytime, the pain gradually subsides, but at night the attacks return again. They are especially common if the patient does not follow the basic rules to prevent the disease:
2. Arthrosis - a disease that often affects the joints of women who prefer to wear shoes with heels. Constant compression of the limbs leads to bone deformation, which causes pain. If you do not pay any attention to the situation that has arisen, then over time the pain in the big toe joint will bother you not only while walking, but also at rest.
3. Incorrectly chosen shoes can lead to ingrown toenails. In such a situation, pain is accompanied by very strong redness, swelling and even suppuration. You should not try to solve this problem yourself. Only a doctor can prescribe the most effective treatment.
4. Morton's neuroma . This disease develops as a result of flat feet, wearing uncomfortable shoes and very long, high loads on the foot. The tissues thicken significantly, the nerve roots are pinched, which leads to severe pain. As a result, a person’s foot hurts, discomfort appears not only in the big toe, but also in the third or fourth.
5. Fractures, bruises . Characteristic signs of injury are:
6. Bursitis. When there is pain in the big toe, the cause of discomfort is bursitis, which is accompanied by severe swelling around the joint and a purple color of the skin. If it is complicated by an infectious infection, then headache, nausea, and fever join the unpleasant sensations in the limb.
7. Prolonged, uncomfortable position of the foot leads to pain not only in the toe, but throughout the entire lower part of the leg.
In addition, pain can be caused by diabetes or inflammation of the arteries. Its character is very diverse: sharp, piercing, cutting or blunt. In most diseases, pain occurs at any time, but, as a rule, the discomfort becomes more intense when walking and decreases slightly when the person is at rest.
When pain appears in the big toe, the causes and treatment require preliminary diagnosis. However, its complexity lies in the fact that diseases from a wide variety of fields of medicine can cause discomfort.
A family doctor or therapist can refer you to the right specialist and make a preliminary diagnosis. When visiting them, a number of laboratory tests are performed and an anamnesis is collected. Only after this can you narrow down the range of possible causes and give a referral for consultation to a specialist with a more specialized profile:
To find out why your big toe hurts, doctors can use the following diagnostic methods:
Your big toe is swollen and painful, but a visit to the doctor is not possible soon? There are a sufficient number of proven methods that can quickly relieve pain and return the patient to their normal lifestyle.
There are several preventive recommendations that can be followed to prevent the occurrence of pain:
Pain never occurs on its own. If your big toe hurts, it is always a signal that there is a health problem that needs to be addressed. After all, it is easier to prevent the occurrence of a disease than to treat it for a long time and not always with a positive result.
As a rule, no one pays attention to such things, especially at a young age.
Perhaps someone has had similar questions, but often they remain questions to which, especially after the symptom has disappeared, the answer is no longer interesting.
However, as it turns out, it’s worth paying attention to. Perhaps right now. Causes of numbness of the thumb on the left hand.
If, after a visit to the doctor, you are given a “Healthy” verdict, you should still pay attention to the following preventive methods, which will undoubtedly help you not only get rid of numbness in the thumb on your left hand, but also improve and strengthen your body generally.
From all of the above, it is obvious that the thumb of the left hand can go numb for various reasons, ranging from health conditions to diet.
Therefore, before drawing any independent conclusions, including from this article, consult a doctor. And, of course, no one has canceled the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.