It’s the ring finger on my left hand. I panicked a bit when I first noticed it, earlier today, and checked a few sites. Seems it’s not an A-list warning of a heart attack, which was my first concern. I’ve also seen a mention of the pulmonary nerve, of the dangers of cracking your knuckles (which I do), and of the side-effects of Prozac-style antidepressants (I’m on Paroxetine, aka Seroxat).
So does anyone have any helpful suggestions? It’s not completely numb, but noticeably more so than its counterpart on my right hand. It feels a wee touch tingly, like it’s coming back to life after being sat on for a while. I’d make an appointment with my doctor but can it wait till I have something else to see him about?
I’ve had that before. It was disconcerting but nothing (doc said it was stress) and went away on it’s own.
If it’s just tingly it’s probably a pinched nerve or the like. If it’s also colder than your other fingers it’s more likely a circulation thing, but…
My ring and little fingers occasionally numb out on me. The first time it happened it even included the outside edge of my palm. It’s Ulnar Palsy, basically the same thing as carpal tunnel except the nerve is getting aggravated in the elbow or shoulder and affects the outer two fingers. The treatment I was given? Over the counter Ibuprofen. 1600 mg a day for 10 days. Not a typo, that is 1600. The other option is exploratory surgery to find out what is inflammed and pressing the nerve.
The doc told me that whenever numbness starts up, just take ibuprofen. Still works for me.
Yeah, I had the same problem with the ring finger on my left hand. Except I don’t wear rings. I was carrying a plastic grocery bag that was a little too heavy, it was pulling right on the joint where the finger meets the hand and it appears that I pulled a tendon or ligament or something. At first, I could hardly feel anything in that finger. It’s now a week later and it’s still a teeny bit numb but it’s almost back to normal.
TurboDog, I too have the ulnar nerve problem. When it was finally diganosed, after some false starts (tennis elbow? golf elbow? neither of which sport I play, by the way…) I was given the ibuprofen regimen, though with no time limit. It worked fairly well for a month or so, but then my stomach couldn’t tolerate it any more, so I had to quit.
What I discovered that actually did help, though, was changing the way I slept. I had been in the habit of sleeping with my arms crossed over my torso, with my wrists bent inward. In effect, I was doing my best, though unintentionally, to pull the nerve most tightly through my elbows while I slept. The neurologist suggested a couple remedies-bringing a couple extra pillows into bed and slipping each arm in between a pillow and its case or using an elastic bandage to hold a tennis ball inside my elbow-both of which are designed to prevent the arm from flexing. The pillows prevented my from turning over and the tennis balls were too odd to try. But I found that I was able, over time, to retrain myself without the uncomfortable extras. For a while, I would wake up, uncomfortable, realizing that I was back in the “wrong” position. But now I can sleep with my arms at least partially extended without really thinking about it.
Other things to avoid are resting your elbows on the table or leaning your arm on armrests/the edge of the open car window (one of my former favorites)/anything else that causes pressure on the ulnar nerve.
I was in generally tolerable but fairly constant pain for almost 3 years until I was finally able to figure out what was going on and what I could do to change it. I am now almost completely free of pain. You might want to try some of these “lifestyle changes” as, in my experience, it gets worse over time.
Numbness of digits IV-V can be caused by either a lesion to the ulnar nerve, usually at the cubital tunnel (funny bone) at the elbow or at the wrist (Guyon’s Canal), OR by a more proximal lesion, such as a pinched nerve root in the neck (the C7/8 roots). The neck lesion will usually give numbness along the ulnar aspect of the forearm as well, and be associated with neck/shoulder pain.