6. How to Tell What is Causing the Numbness in Your Hands

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Hi, folks i'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist, Brad Heineck physical therapist

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Together we are the most famous physical therapist on the internet. In our opinion of course, Bob. How to tell

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What is causing the numbness in your hands. We're gonna go over five common causes

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I'm sure this has happened to most people at sometime. You get this, numbness, tingling

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Pricking, burning sensation. Yeah feels like little

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Electrical feeling kind of some people describe it. Yeah sometimes you

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Wake up with it when you're sleeping on your arms funny

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And usually it goes away right away but if you get some that numbness that's persisting and not going away, we'll show

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You, some tests you can, do on yourself to try to help determine. Right, right.

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We try to keep it simple right Brad? Yeah ,keep it simple exactly and you got a neat diagram here i really like

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This diagram. Yeah, we'll show this diagram

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That in just a minute but, oh by the way if you are new

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To our channel please take a second to subscribe to us we provide videos how

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Back and forth that's way it goes. That's how life works.Alright, let's go talk

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About the first most common source of numbness which is carpal tunnel. Right. And maybe this is a good time to show

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this Brad. It is.

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So you've got three main nerves that are going to innervate your hand

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We got the median nerve, which is the carpal tunnel nerve. Show which fingers that affects Brad.

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So the median is the orange here and if you got your palm facing you it's part of the thumb

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The pointer finger the middle finger and half of the ring finger.. Yeah and on the backside it's just

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The upper half of those, the pointer finger , the distal part

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yeah

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distal or toward the finger nails of the pointer, middle, and ring finger. the radial nerve

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Is just part of the thumb here and really the backside of the hand. Right, so i'm looking at it

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like. It's like you're wearing a glove without fingertips in it. Yeah

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I always wondered why they made those gloves that way. There you go. And then the final one is the ulnar nerve

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Which is more tends to be the pinky. Right.

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And half of the ring finger, half of the ring finger. So this is the one where if you bump

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Your funny bone right in the elbow

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You, may, feel that up in o the pinky and that's what there's a real common thing or i hit my funny

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Bone and you feel it in your pinky that's

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Why. It's really an ulnar nerve is what you hit. Precisely. As it goes around through the elbow

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There's no funny bone no, we learned that at school

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You're, a funny guy, though

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Again, carpal tunnel so that's that median nerve. Going to be affecting here

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Let's just show, you a couple easy tests you can. You can do Phalen's test. You want to show

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That one Brad? Sure. So yep all you do is you're saying your prayers you're keeping

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your elbows up and as you do this you

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Want to see if that recreates the symptoms. Typically for 30 seconds right Bob? Sure. So palms together, when you go up

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Like this don't let this happen

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Keep the palms together and then this as far as you can go. Matter of fact, I've got a person with

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Carpal tunnel right now and we've done both of these and he's positive on both. Okay positive means that it actually

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occurred right

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And then there's reverse Phalen's. Same thing kind of keeping a sharp angle

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At the wrist. Yeah don't let this happen right glue the hands together in the back and let the elbows down. And then sometimes

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We just go ahead and we tap right on that about where that nerve would

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Be right in the middle between the two fleshy parts here. Right. You're right over the carpal tunnel that's

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Why and now you're gonna tap for about 30 seconds and you start feeling

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Tingling and burning or numbness you know being recreated. Right.

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Typically the same symptoms that bother you whenever you're having the problem that you're questioning

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So let's say it's not that let's say

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You're getting pain in different parts of the hand maybe it might be median, nerve, maybe it's radial, ulnar, we don't know which one?

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Maybe it's coming from your neck

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Sure. So a real simple way to test that is we're actually just gonna have you move your

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Neck in different directions and does that change the numbness and the tingling does it bring it on, does it take it off?

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So brad's gonna show from the side. I'm gonna show from the frontal view

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So we're gonna go ahead and just the first one we typically have people do we start in good posture and

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And and sometimes we just do a chin tuck. Yep and see if that changes things

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And i think both Bob and I've had will do a few chin tucks here

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Oh, my hands feel a little different or better. Right. That's not uncommon so that's how we start with as strange

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As that may seem

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Okay, next one is you're

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Gonna go ahead straight flexion. A lot of times this might recreate. It might make it a bit worse this might

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Make the numbness worse. If this is happening when you do this it probably

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There's definitely the neck that's playing a role. Right. It's not always all of it Sometimes you might have a little bit of both.

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But all three of those nerves

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Originate back here and the low neck. Okay you can try turning. Turn one to the right

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Then turn to the left and again is it recreating your symptoms or is it making your symptoms worse and

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Then side bending

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Try to put me one ear on to your shoulder your right here onto

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Your right shoulder your left ear off your left shoulder. And you may want to do you know

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Repetitions of this just to the right you know i'm not more than 10

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But up to 10 and see if the

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Repetition will help reproduce. Sometimes it reproduces it sometimes it takes it away. Right. If there's any change at all that

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Means that it probably is again the neck is involved and the last one is we work on is going back like

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this, again, good posture

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Extending back does that recreate your symptoms? Right.

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Now if any of these create any unusual pain, you're just gonna stop it. Right. So, we're just looking for.. That's often

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What you might see to is pain

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Along with that Brad. I mean because usually once it gets to numbness and tingling there's usually some pain involved

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Also. Right. All right the third most common you know

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Possibility would be diabetes and there's really not a test that

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We would do that you would do at home. Right, but generally as a rule of thumb it starts in your feet first

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Yeah, so they call it's a neuropathy often described as where your feet

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Globally or i call a stocking, like, the area that when you pull up a stock in that whole areas

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Nummy and tingly and those people when it gets

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Bad they have a hard time with walking and balance because you can't feel their feet very

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Well that's more the that's in a later stage but

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Starting off it just might be a mild numbness going in but if you're getting numbness in your feet and your hands

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That's one thing we're gonna suspect is diabetes. Sure.

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Get that checked out then. Then there's all the ulnar nerve entrapment. Remember the ulnar nerve

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Was the one that affected the little pinky and a little half of the ring finger

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That you can

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Have actually you can the nerve can get trapped underneath here. Right. Under underneath the tunnel here and one of the tests for this

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Very simple is is to actually just turn your your hand out like this and then flex it

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flex the elbow

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And that's really putting a lot of stretch on that nerve.Sure, yep. And you can see if that that

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Recreates your symptoms. You actually can go right under this bone to and tap under there. Where the funny

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Bone is and see if that recreates your symptoms. I've seen people that

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Just sometimes sit in an armchair too much, a hard one.

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we have people on wheelchairs and that the pressure on there actually causes the numbness down there. I have that in the car i had

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Rest my arm driving and it would hit right in that spot and i didn't stay there very long

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Because it's not very comfortable. Right. Or you know i'd put a different pad there you know

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You could have thoracic outlet syndrome too, you know the nerves come out from the upper thoracic

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Level here. A simple test for that one is just is it Roo's?

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Roo's. Right, where you go like this

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People that work over a head often times, like a mechanic working in o their car or working if someone's working on a ceiling a lot

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you know. They may feel that those symptoms. So you know

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Yeah, you're bringing your arms up to a straight across level here and you can even bring them

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Back a little bit and then you're getting just gonna you know squeeze your hands open your hands and

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If it starts recreating the symptoms there's a chance you have thoracic outlet syndrome. Right. That's a

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Whole different animal that you have to have treated. And we have video just on that with

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Some exercises to address that. So the final thing that as a possibility and you're probably, going to know

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What if you have this is a Raynaud's syndrome

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I don't know if that's the way to say it. I think you got it right, Raynaud's. So you're getting a spasm of arteries

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It causes reduced blood flow. And that the typical sign is the fingers first turn white

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Then they turn blue. It's the the colors of the flag and then eventually they end up red and burning sure now

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You said your daughter has a mild case of this. Right hers just turns white. Hers just turn white.

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And she's sensitive to being in the cold

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You know if we go skiing she got the warmest gloves we can get and even then

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You know she pulls her gloves off and they're just all white and she's not very comfortable

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But you know hers never gets to that severe case. Sure

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It's often triggered by cold or emotional

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Events. Right, right. So that's really it that's probably some of the five most common reasons why you're gonna have

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Some numbness or tingling. Obviously if you're concerned

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Go and see your doctor. Right and get a get a diagnosed. Bob that was very

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Well done. I have to admit you really put that out

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Well i think you get an a+. Wow, I haven't gotten an a+ since I cheated in Algebra

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All right thanks everybody for watching