Tingling

WHEN TO SEE YOUR DOCTOR

* You experience tingling that dramatically increases when you sit, cough or sneeze.

* Any unexplained tingling that affects an entire side of your body or is accompanied by muscle weakness warrants immediate medical attention.

What Your Symptom Is Telling You

In most cases, tingling is harmless. It usually occurs after you pinch a nerve or press on an artery and reduce blood flow in your arm or leg causing it to "fall asleep." When you change body position and relieve the compression, the tingling quickly goes away.

But tingling can also be a symptom of any number of problems, including anxiety, a herniated spinal disk, poor blood circulation, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, carpal tunnel syndrome or a tumor.

Symptom Relief

Tingling that happens without a detectable cause should be brought to the attention of your doctor, says Sean Grady, M.D., a neurosurgeon at the University of Washington Health Sciences Center in Seattle.

If your doctor suspects your tingling is a symptom of a disease, he will probably perform a complete neurological and physical examination. He also might take a blood sample to determine if diabetes is causing your problem.

If, however, your arm or leg has simply fallen asleep, there's no need to see a doctor. The following tips should be very effective.

Give it a rubdown. Massaging the muscles in the tingling area can usually enhance blood flow or reduce pressure on a pinched nerve and end the tingling real fast, Dr. Grady says.

Don't just sit there. Moving an arm or leg that has fallen asleep will help bring blood into the area and wipe out the tingling. If you walk around or change body positions several times an hour, you can prevent tingling in the first place. By moving about, you're less likely to pinch a nerve or artery, Dr. Grady says.

Loosen up. Some people who wear tight pants or belts may experience tingling in their thighs. "Loosen the belt, wear suspenders, get new pants or, better yet, if you need to, lose weight," says Dr. Grady.

Straighten up. "One of the reasons you might be having tingling is a disk problem in the neck or back. By slouching, you could be irritating a nerve near that disk," says Steven Mandel, M.D., clinical professor of neurology at Jefferson Medical College and an attending physician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. "It's important to maintain good body posture by standing straight and not slumping in chairs."

See also Numbness