Seriously. Ever since I woke up this morning, my left thumb has been numb. Not unusably so – as much as I need to use that thumb, it turns out I always hit the space bar with my right thumb, who knew? – but distinctly numb.
By a bizarre coincidence, I had an appt. with a medical professional this morning (nurse practitioner, for a poke at the ol’ plumbing), so I mentioned it to her. Her professional opinion, after ascertaining it was only the thumb, not the other fingers on that hand or elsewhere on that side of my body: “Huh. That’s weird. Keep an eye on it.”
Twicks, I’d forgotton about it until you mentioned it but the same thing happened to me about a year ago; just woke up one morning and there was a tingling in my right thumb, all the way to the meaty portion where it joins the index finger. I often sleep with my hands interlocked on my stomach and just figured maybe it was a circulatory deal. It did bother me at first since it appeared to be permanent, lasting for weeks and then months but, as mentioned, apparently it did finally go away. I hope your duration’s shorter.
Sounds like you probably “slept funny” and tweaked a nerve, most likely the radial nerve.
How’s your neck feeling? IIRC, the radial nerve comes out of the spine at the very bottom of the neck (at vertebrae C7-T1) and any misalignment or compression here can cause all sorts of problems in your hands and arms. Another possibility is if you slept with your hand folded in under you, you could have compressed the nerve as it passes through the carpal tunnel.
If you pop over to your chiropractor, they can probably fix things in minutes. IME, regular medical doctors are almost always well over their heads in trying to diagnose and treat misalignments unless they have experienced such problems themselves.
A few months back, my right thumb remained numb for about two weeks. As best I can figure, it was caused by going golfing and to the driving range in two or three days leading to it, hitting approximately 400 golf balls. I figure I somehow pinched something up in my thumb between the repetitive action and the shock up the shaft of the club [del]chunking into the ground[/del] hitting the balls.
Hm, I do tend to sleep in this very weird “arms wrapped tightly around me” position, so it might be that. Plus I have been experiencing a sore neck the last few days. I don’t have a chiropractor, though. I hope a week at the beach (week after next) will be adequate therapy. Although that’s also the only week of the year I play any golf, it’s all putting.
Doesn’t sound like my thumb is going to fall off, though. Unless it’s from the fact that I keep wiggling it around to see if it’s still numb.
I don’t know what this thread has done for you, but I’ve managed to emphasize the sarcasm inherent in my screen name as well as demonstrate that, while my body is getting older, my mind is going.
Both the nurse practitioner this morning and the doctor last week asked me, as they ran down their checklist of things to ask about, if I experienced any arthritic whatever. Twinges. And I said no, but then was thinking, how the hell do I know? What does arthritis feel like?
