I’m 27, and I’ve been having problems with numbness on and off since I was 17, mostly in my arms. I haven’t noticed any obvious varicose-like veins, but I don’t know what else could be causing what I’m about to explain to happen.
The numbness when I was younger seemed to be nerve-related, or so I thought. It was always the same, aching shooting pain, until summer 2016 I started to notice it being aggravated by cold weather in my job. I would occasionally get shooting electric-like pains from my elbow down, but I just figured it might be cold damage from working outside.
Last year though, I noticed something else was starting to happen. I started experiencing a significant increase in the numbness in my arms to the point where it began to happen at night and wake me up. I don’t think it’s caused by positions as this never happened before in my life and then it became almost nightly, and often/usually effects both arms at once.
This bothered me, but again, I was not too concerned, I just thought it was weird that it seemed that sleeping itself would trigger the numbness opposed to positions. This was mostly confirmed when I took a plane ride last November and fell asleep in a comfortable sitting position, only to wake up with my whole left arm more numb than I’ve ever felt in my life. It was very painful and was enough to make me panic. In the days after I experienced more numbness than normal.
Over Christmas, I began to also notice this effecting my legs occasionally sometimes, especially if sitting. The same painful numbness. It’s been hard to tell that this seems to be happening on account for me standing all day at my job, and having chronic pain on top of it. But I learned over the winter that sitting too long, crossing legs too long, or kneeling too long will cause my legs to go painfully numb.
In February, I had my wisdom teeth removed, and while healing I got super sick. A lot of things happened, but one was that I noticed that sensation changes started happening in my limbs. When I’d shower, the soles of my feet would burn even though I was warm. Things like metal, water, or air felt “different” against my skin. Often I felt a sensation almost like cold water running through my veins. Most notably, I started getting extreme mottling in my hands to the point where they were turning blue.
The doctors said that this is Reynaud’s, so I let it be for some time. But it’s been months, and nothing has improved and after researching Reynaud’s and comparing my experience, I don’t feel like it fits. I’ve never had patchiness of color, only significant mottling. The mottling is constant and only goes away when I raise my hands. If my hands are by my sides for any amount of time, the veins swell, the fingers turn red and mottled and feel full of blood. Even if it’s 30 degrees Celcius out!
My arms are almost constantly “off”, even lying down, the sensation of temperature is permanently disturbed and the numbness and pain usually there. It still gets significantly worse while sleeping in both sides and wakes me up. I drank alcohol on the weekend, and I think I will avoid this altogether from now on, because the numbness while sleeping was so bad that I could feel upon regaining consciousness the blood return to my arms in a rush and the subsequent rush of intense pins and needles was awful!
I think that’s about it. Has anyone ever experienced this? It seems like a blood pooling or circulation issue to me, judging by the mottling and numbness combined and temperature changes. The best thing I can think of to explain it would be valve issues in veins. I wonder if it’s worth me going back to the doctor about it, given that it seems to be worsening - they had told me not to worry about it and that I was mostly just experiencing anxiety when I was sick, but it’s been months and I’m not anxious at all, and yet the mottling is always evident, and it can’t be anxiety when the numbness is waking me up at night, can it??