Professional Podiatric Foot Care

Friday, July 1, 2016

Don't you hate when your feet fall asleep


It happens to all of us; on an airplane, sitting at our desk, or just lying in bed: the dreaded pins and needles of the foot falling asleep. Why does this happen? And is there a surefire remedy to make our foot feel normal again?




Well many people believe that when the foot falls asleep, it does so because of a lack of blood circulation. Sorry, but this is just an old wives tale. The foot actually falls asleep because of the nerves. Nerves are the tiny “wires” that are all over your body and make you feel. The majority of the nerves in your body carry messages from your brain to the body and vice versa. Think of them as electrical wires. And when you compress your nerves for a long enough period of time, the communication from brain to foot (or any part of your body that is being compressed for a long enough time) is disrupted. This disruption is what causes the pins and needles feeling, or what some call, the static screen of the body.




How do you get rid of this? Most people move their foot around to get blood flow back, and even though blood flow may not be the problem, their solution is correct. By moving your foot to new places and decompressing the nerves that were disrupted, the annoying feeling will go away fairly quickly.



So, whenever your foot, hand, arm, or leg gets those pins and needles, and you know it fell asleep, move it around (dance if you have to!) and get those nerves communicating again!

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