Your feet re­ly on a sense of touch to pull away from hot sur­faces and to nav­i­gate chang­ing ter­rain. But if you ex­pe­ri­ence numb­ness in your foot, you may have lit­tle to no sen­sa­tion in your foot.

Numb­ness or tin­gling is an un­pleas­ant sen­sa­tion in which there is re­duced or ab­sent feel­ing in the skin or a “pins and nee­dles” sen­sa­tion.

Numb­ness in your foot may be a tem­po­rary con­di­tion or it can be the re­sult of a chron­ic con­di­tion, such as di­a­betes. The symp­tom can al­so be pro­gres­sive. You may be­gin to lose some sen­sa­tion in your foot then slow­ly lose more and more feel­ing as time goes on. Seek­ing med­ical ad­vice for numb­ness in your foot may help slow or de­lay its progress.

What are the symp­toms of numb­ness in your foot?

The chief symp­tom for numb­ness in your foot is los­ing sen­sa­tion in your foot. This af­fects your sense of touch and bal­ance be­cause you can’t feel your foot’s po­si­tion against the ground.

While sen­sa­tion loss is the main symp­tom of numb­ness in your foot, you may ex­pe­ri­ence some ad­di­tion­al, ab­nor­mal sen­sa­tions. These in­clude:

• prick­ling

• pins-and-nee­dles sen­sa­tion

• tin­gling

• weak-feel­ing foot or feet

These ad­di­tion­al symp­toms can help your doc­tor di­ag­nose what’s caus­ing the numb­ness in your foot.

What caus­es numb­ness in your foot?

Your body is a com­plex net­work of nerves that trav­el from the tips of your toes and fin­gers to your brain and back again. If you ex­pe­ri­ence dam­age, a block­age, in­fec­tion, or com­pres­sion of a nerve that trav­els to the foot, you may ex­pe­ri­ence numb­ness in your foot.

When do I seek med­ical help for numb­ness in my foot?

Numb­ness in your foot that oc­curs sud­den­ly and with oth­er symp­toms, such as dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing, can be cause for con­cern.

Seek im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion if you ex­pe­ri­ence the fol­low­ing symp­toms as well as numb­ness in your foot:

• con­fu­sion

• dif­fi­cul­ty talk­ing

• dizzi­ness

• loss of blad­der or bow­el con­trol

• numb­ness that be­gins in a mat­ter of min­utes or hours

• numb­ness that in­volves mul­ti­ple parts of the body

• numb­ness that oc­curs af­ter a head in­jury

• se­vere headache

• trou­ble breath­ing

What are the po­ten­tial caus­es of numb­ness in legs and feet?

Numb­ness or tin­gling in the feet and legs could be due to a va­ri­ety of con­di­tions. These in­clude:

• di­a­bet­ic pe­riph­er­al neu­ropa­thy (MOST com­mon)

• spinal in­juries or pres­sure on the nerves

• fi­bromyal­gia

• mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis

• tarsal tun­nel syn­drome

• pe­riph­er­al artery dis­ease

• stroke or tran­sient is­chemic at­tack

How is numb­ness in the legs and feet treat­ed?

In many cas­es of numb­ness and tin­gling in the legs and feet, treat­ing the un­der­ly­ing cause is key to re­liev­ing this symp­tom.

For ex­am­ple, if di­a­betes is the cause of your neu­ropa­thy, man­ag­ing your blood sug­ar lev­els is an im­por­tant step to take to avoid fur­ther dam­age.

If you de­vel­op re­cur­ring numb­ness or tin­gling in your legs or feet, talk with your doc­tor about the pos­si­ble caus­es and treat­ments. Ad­dress­ing chron­ic is­sues can take time, though. Your doc­tor can of­fer some things to help re­duce dis­com­fort from numb­ness and tin­gling while you work on big­ger prob­lems.

Please keep in mind that this guide is not in­tend­ed to re­place a face-to-face eval­u­a­tion with your doc­tor. The goal of this guide is to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion while await­ing eval­u­a­tion with your doc­tor.

For more in­for­ma­tion:

https://www.health­line.com/health/numb­ness-of-foot