Living
HIGHLIGHT:
The nerve dance:
Numbness and tingling
by Elinor Nauen
Bees crawling under the skin, lightning bolts, a
subway running under the feet,
walking on marbles, wearing
three pairs of socks or skintight
gloves—these are some of the
ways that people with MS have
described their symptoms of
numbness and tingling. And
no matter how they describe
them, no one finds them
pleasant.
“Tingling is a bad word!”
insisted Maria Jackson,*
46, a teacher from Detroit.
“Tingling sounds pleasant and
this isn’t. Burning is much
closer to what it is, like my legs
have been dipped in pepper
sauce. Or like when my foot
is asleep and waking up—sort
of painful, but also hot and
cold at the same time. I felt
like a vibrating tuning fork at
first, except the tingling was so
strong, it was really more like
banging, not vibrating.”
Jasmine Quinn,* 32,
a lawyer in New York,
experiences numbness in her
left arm, left leg and the left
side of her face. “It doesn’t look
different, but when I touch it,
it’s less responsive,” she said.
“I’ve also had tingling during
an exacerbation, or when I’m
hot, tired or stressed.”
MS-related numbness and tingling can
be a serious pain. People with MS and MS
specialists share ways to address—and cope
with—these common MS symptoms.
What the causes are
Numbness and tingling are
among the most common
symptoms of MS, and
often the first signs of the
disease. Technically called
paresthesias, from the Greek
meaning “abnormal feeling,”
they can be temporary or
permanent.
They are common because
of how MS affects the brain
and spinal cord. “Think of the
spinal cord as a thick bundle of
wires, conveying information
and sensations. Damage—such
as a lesion—interrupts those
pathways, so you get the loss or
alteration of normal feeling,”
explained Stephen Krieger, MD,
a neurologist at the Corinne
Goldsmith Dickinson Center
for Multiple Sclerosis and an
MS specialist at Mount Sinai in
New York.
“Numbness is a loss of the
ability to feel, while tingling
is an abnormal or unusual
sensation. They often go
together,” added Dr. Krieger.
A lesion can cause
numbness and tingling almost
anywhere—trunk, arms or
legs. “Sensory nerve pathways
carry information, telling us
that the floor is flat or we have
socks on,” said James Bowen,
MD, medical director, Multiple
Sclerosis Center of the Swedish
Neuroscience Institute, in
Seattle. “If those pathways are
blocked, there’s no way for
information to get to the brain,
so the reduction in feeling is
perceived as numbness. Or the
brain might morph the signal,
causing a sensation of burning
or tingling instead of socks.”
A similar symptom is a tight
feeling around the trunk, known
as “girdling” or the “MS hug.”
Jackson experienced it when she
was first diagnosed. “I felt like I
had to push against it a lot,” she
recalled.
Jackson also experienced
Lhermitte’s phenomenon, a
brief, stabbing sensation that
feels like an electric shock
running from the back of
