June 9, 2013
My feet are numb and tingly
In November of 2012, my lovely wife and daughter and I took a family vacation to southeast Asia. In Malaysia, we attended my wife's cousin's wedding, took in the sights and culture and food, and spent time with her family.
Everyone in Malaysia wears sandals. Flip-flops, open-toes, plastic, leather, pleather, whatever. It's too hot to wear socks and shoes. So I bought a nice cheap pair of black pleather sandals and clomped around in them. They weren't particularly comfortable, but my feet were cool, and it allowed me to better blend in with the locals ;).
My wife and I left the kid with her family in Malaysia and took a side trip to Bangkok. It was an amazing mini-vacation, just me and her. We took in more sights, shopped, ate, walked around, got massages, reconnected with each other, and generally had a fantastic time.
It was some time during this trip that I noticed numbness and tingling in my feet. It was an uncomfortable and peculiar feeling, but it wasn't painful or too uncomfortable. I figured it was related to all the walking around with my cheap plastic-soled pleather sandals, and that it would get better on its own.
But it persisted, and even got a little worse. By the time we returned home from Asia, my feet were persistently numb and tingly. This caused me to be clumsy and awkward in my gait because my brain didn't get feedback from my feet about where they were and what they were doing. It prevented me from running and jumping and playing sports and doing all the activities that I was accustomed to. It also manifested itself in shooting paresthesia, starting in the middle of my back and and running down my shoulders and arms all the way to the tips of my fingers. I could trigger these pins and needles by violent actions such as throwing myself to the ground or banging into a wall, or by common simple actions like coughing or sneezing.
I continued to think it was a transitory impairment, and that it would get better on its own. I continued my active life. But I had a few incidents that concerned me.
I lifted weights at the gym as usual. When you do squats, you lay a weighted barbell across your shoulders and squat down and stand up. With anything more than minimal weight on the bar, this caused serious paresthesia.
I also kept playing soccer. I'm a goalkeeper, which means I throw myself all over the place actively trying to get hit by by soccer balls and other players. It's hazardous when you are healthy to begin with, and I've injured myself many times in the past. But with my impairment, I had two major problems. The first was that on more than one occasion, I temporarily paralyzed myself by diving into the ground. The paresthesia shot through my arms, core, legs, and feet. It felt like a mild electrical shock through my whole body. It lasted about 10 seconds, during which I was unable to get up off the ground or move at all. But it went away, and I got back up and kept playing. The second problem was that I was just becoming clumsy and uncoordinated. I couldn't move or run normally. I couldn't kick the ball well. I couldn't jump. I was playing terribly. It came to a head when one of my teammates rightfully berated me for an awful play where I stumbled, missed the ball, and fell.
At this point, it was late November 2012. I decided to take time off from sports to let my body recover. I figured it wasn't a big deal, and that I would get better with rest. That's how things normally work. But by the middle of December, it wasn't better, and was in fact worse.
Posted by jon at June 9, 2013 6:30 AM