What Causes Numbness and Tingling After an Injury?
What Causes Numbness and Tingling After an Injury?
After an injury, pain and soreness are often expected. But what happens when you begin experiencing numbness, tingling, pins and needles, or unusual sensations in your arms, hands, legs, or feet?
These symptoms can be confusing, particularly when they appear hours or even days after a car accident, workplace injury, fall, or other traumatic event. While temporary tingling can sometimes occur from something as simple as sitting in one position too long, persistent or new numbness following an injury may indicate that a nerve has been irritated, compressed, or damaged.
At Ohio Therapy Centers, we help patients throughout Northeast Ohio evaluate musculoskeletal injuries and symptoms following car accidents, work injuries, and other accidents. Understanding what may be behind numbness and tingling is an important first step toward determining what care you may need.
Why Does an Injury Cause Numbness and Tingling?
Your nerves carry information between your brain, spinal cord, and the rest of your body. When a nerve is compressed, irritated, stretched, or injured, those signals can be disrupted.
Instead of ordinary sensation, you might experience:
- Numbness or decreased sensation
- Tingling or pins and needles
- Burning sensations
- Shooting or electric pain
- Increased sensitivity
- Muscle weakness
- Pain that travels into an arm or leg
Where you experience these symptoms can sometimes provide clues about which nerves or areas of the body may be involved.
Pinched or Compressed Nerves
A pinched nerve is one possible cause of numbness and tingling after an injury.
Trauma can cause swelling and inflammation around muscles, joints, discs, and other tissues. In some cases, these changes can place pressure on or irritate nearby nerves.
For example, nerve irritation in the neck may cause symptoms that extend into the shoulder, arm, hand, or fingers. Nerve problems originating in the lower back may produce symptoms in the buttocks, legs, or feet.
Herniated or Bulging Discs
The discs between the vertebrae of your spine provide cushioning and help the spine move.
A sudden impact or forceful movement during a car accident or workplace injury can potentially injure a spinal disc or aggravate an existing disc problem. When a damaged disc affects a nearby nerve root, numbness, tingling, weakness, or radiating pain can occur.
The location of the affected disc often influences where symptoms are felt.
A cervical disc injury in the neck may affect the upper extremities, while a lumbar disc injury in the lower back may cause symptoms that travel into the legs.
Whiplash and Neck Injuries
Whiplash is commonly associated with rear-end collisions, but it can occur whenever the head and neck experience rapid movement during an accident.
The force of a crash may strain muscles and ligaments and irritate structures around the cervical spine. When nerves are involved, symptoms may extend beyond neck stiffness or soreness.
Some people may experience tingling, numbness, burning sensations, or weakness in an arm or hand following a neck injury.
These symptoms should not automatically be dismissed as ordinary post-accident soreness.
Sciatica and Lower Back Injuries
Numbness and tingling in the lower body can sometimes be associated with sciatica.
Sciatica describes symptoms related to irritation or compression involving the sciatic nerve pathway. Symptoms can begin in the lower back or buttock and travel into the thigh, calf, foot, or toes.
In addition to numbness and tingling, some people experience sharp, burning, or shooting pain.
Car accidents, lifting injuries, falls, and other workplace incidents can potentially affect structures in the lower back and contribute to these symptoms.
Can Numbness and Tingling Be Delayed After an Accident?
Yes. Symptoms involving nerves don’t always appear immediately.
Following a collision or other traumatic event, adrenaline can temporarily affect how your body perceives pain. Swelling and inflammation may also increase gradually.
Someone involved in a car accident may initially notice only mild neck or back stiffness. Hours or days later, tingling in the fingers or numbness traveling down a leg may become noticeable.
That’s why paying attention to new or changing symptoms after an injury is important, even if you initially felt fine.
Numbness and Tingling After a Work Injury
Work-related injuries can also affect nerves.
Workers who regularly lift, bend, twist, push, pull, grip tools, or perform repetitive movements may experience musculoskeletal injuries that affect surrounding nerves. Falls, equipment accidents, and sudden lifting injuries can also result in symptoms.
If numbness or tingling develops following a specific workplace accident, or continues to worsen while performing your normal job duties, an evaluation can help determine what may be causing the problem.
When Should You Get Numbness or Tingling Checked?
Brief tingling that disappears after changing positions isn’t necessarily a sign of a serious injury. Persistent, recurring, or worsening symptoms after an accident deserve more attention.
Consider seeking medical evaluation if numbness or tingling is accompanied by:
- Neck or back pain
- Pain traveling down an arm or leg
- Muscle weakness
- Difficulty walking
- Problems gripping or holding objects
- Loss of coordination
- Increasing or spreading numbness
- Symptoms that interfere with work or everyday activities
Seek urgent medical attention for sudden or significant weakness, difficulty walking, loss of bladder or bowel control, numbness around the groin or inner thighs, or other severe neurological changes.
Physical Rehab for Musculoskeletal and Nerve-Related Injuries
Treatment depends on what’s causing the numbness or tingling. Identifying the underlying injury is important because symptoms involving a nerve can have several possible causes.
For appropriate patients, physical rehab may be part of an individualized treatment plan. Rehab may focus on restoring mobility, improving strength and flexibility, reducing stiffness, and helping patients return to normal activities safely.
At Ohio Therapy Centers, we provide care for people experiencing symptoms after car accidents, work-related injuries, and musculoskeletal injuries throughout Northeast Ohio.
If you’ve developed numbness, tingling, weakness, or radiating pain after an injury, don’t simply assume it will disappear on its own.
