Stop the Pain and Tingling: Manage Peripheral Neuropathy with Chiropractic

If you’ve been experiencing a strange tingling in both hands, tingling in your feet, hands that become cold, or numbness in any of your extremities, you may be one of 20 million Americans experiencing peripheral neuropathy symptoms. You may also be wondering whether chiropractic is an effective peripheral neuropathy treatment. In this post we’ll explore the symptoms, root causes and potential treatments of this common but highly disruptive condition.

Common Peripheral Neuropathy Symptoms

Peripheral neuropathy is nerve damage in the outer (peripheral) parts of the body — fingers, hands, wrists, shoulders, elbows, ribs, hips, knees, feet and toes — that leads to pain, weakness, numbness or tingling.  It occurs as the result of pressure on a nerve or nerves, often as the result of an injury.  

When the tissues around a misaligned or injured joint stretch too far and thin, your adjacent muscles become weakened, damaging your nerves and causing peripheral neuropathy symptoms like:

• Tingling in both hands
• Tingling in feet
• Tingling in left arm from elbow to hand
• Pain in buttocks shooting down leg

Although neuropathy begins with a tingling or numbness in one joint, it often spreads and may also develop into prickly, sharp or burning pain in other extremities. If allowed to progress even further, neuropathy can cause you to start losing your balance.

Your neuropathy symptoms will vary depending on the type of nerves that are damaged — autonomic nerves, motor nerves or sensory nerves. That’s why documenting your symptoms before seeing a provider will help speed up your diagnosis.

Because your joints, muscles and nerves send messages between your brain and all your extremities, the first step toward long-term healing is to target the root cause of those symptoms.

Chiropractic Management of Peripheral Neuropathy Symptoms

Managing your peripheral neuropathy symptoms requires first discovering their root cause. If it’s physical nerve injury that’s causing your pain, tingling or numbness then your Doctor of Chiropractic can help relieve pressure from any injured nerve via chiropractic adjustments.

“Neuropathy is a very common condition that can take many forms — diabetic neuropathy, carpal tunnel syndrome, sciatica — so we really have to identify the root cause first. Then we work to release the compressed, damaged nerves behind the tingling and numbness.”

Chiro One’s Dr. Shawn Singh

Chiropractic treatment offers various approaches to cross-body peripheral nerve damage pain. Adjustments can help manage muscle weakness, loss of sensation and tingling by decompressing herniated discs to relieve nerve pain.

In a study published by the National Library of Medicine MRI images of compressed discs signals that were irritating nerves decreased after 28 days of decompression treatment.

Benefits of Non-invasive Peripheral Neuropathy Management

When your spinal column isn’t optimally aligned your nerve signals can start to misfire and send into the wrong muscle groups, causing tension and eventually, pain or numbness.

Chiropractic adjustments can help stretch those muscles — whether they’re tense from injury, repetitive motion or improper posture — to release that pressure on your nerves and:

• Reduce your pain
• Improve your range of motion
• Increase your joint and disc stability 
• Restore your optimal muscle function
• Promote healthier tissue repair

Your Doctor of Chiropractic will target the root cause of your peripheral neuropathy by helping you follow a treatment plan that includes active therapies and gentle adjustments (which are like tune-ups for your musculoskeletal system).

Exercises for Managing Neuropathy Symptoms

When pain disrupts your day at an inopportune time, or when you’re waiting for your next chiropractic appointment to get full relief, try managing your neuropathy symptoms with these simple exercises.

Knee-to-Chest Stretch

1. Lie on your back
2. Bring your right leg up toward your chest
3. Wrap your hands behind your right knee and pull it to your chest
4. Feel the tension in your leg for 10 seconds, then lower your leg
5. Repeat 10 times

Calf Stretch

1. Sit with your back against the wall
2. Hook a sheet or towel around the top of your right foot
3. Pull it toward your body while keeping the knee straight
4. Hold 30 seconds and release
5. Repeat 10 times then do the same with your left foot

Toe Splays

1. Sit with your knees bent and feet on the floor
2. Pull your toes toward your body as far as you can and spread them apart
3. Relax your toes, then repeat 10 times
4. Do the same with your other foot

Doing these exercises regularly will not only relieve some pain and tension, they may support the active therapies portion your chiropractic treatment plan.

How Chiropractic Neuropathy Treatment Works

Studies published in Science Direct show that chiropractic adjustments reduce the body’s production of cytokines — proteins that regulate blood cells and immune cells.

Producing too many cykotines puts your immune system into overdrive, which can cause various dysfunctions. By managing your cytokine levels and immune response your chiropractic treatment plan can help:

• Relieve your muscle tension
• Increase your blood flow
• Decrease your inflammation
• Enhance your lung function
• Increase your energy levels

“Once our adjustment and exercise protocols have helped level off the immune response, I’ve seen patients who could barely walk around the block at their first appointment return to running marathons.”

Dr. Singh

Realigning your joints can help restore normal strength and proper function, and gradually improve tingling in both hands, tingling in feet and hands, tingling in left arm from elbow to hand and that pain in buttocks shooting down leg sensation along with other neuropathy symptoms by targeting their root cause.

Want to Manage your Tingling, Shooting Pain or Numbness with a Non-Invasive Care Plan?

Check in with your nearest Chiro One doc at one of our welcoming open-plan clinics across the country. They’ll uncover the root cause of your pain with a thorough exam, then personalize a care plan — a combination of gentle chiropractic adjustments and active therapies — to get you feeling better faster.  Find a Chiro One doctor near you