Menopause Numbness & Tingling

Electric shock, nerve pain, pins & needles, and tingling toes

Peculiar symptoms of menopause - electric shock sensations, nerve pain, pins & needles, and tingling extremities, all affecting your feet, legs, arms, and hands - termed paraesthesia, it can be a perimenopause pain!

Your grip may weaken, numb feet can cause problems with balance, prickly toes can cause a loss of sensation, pinched nerves or compressed joints can cause a burning sensation under your skin, or a feeling that your limbs have suddenly gone to sleep and to top it all Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) that actually impacts on your quality of sleep!

What causes menopause electric shock sensations and nerve pain?

Menopause and nerve pain are linked to hormonal changes that can have a direct effect on your nervous system. When your oestrogen levels start to fluctuate, messages between the nervous system and parts of the body can be misinterpreted, resulting in a prickly feeling under the skin.

Falling oestrogen levels also affect collagen production, causing the skin to thin and reducing blood flow to nerves in the extremities. For some, your menopausal electric shock sensations may be a forerunner to a hot flush and can occur at any moment.  

There’s no real explanation for what’s happening, but anxiety may contribute to these strange sensations and increase the severity of your menopause electric shocks and nerve pain symptoms.

Natural remedies to help menopause electric shock and nerve pain

Whilst a healthy diet packed with omega-3, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains should give you all the nutrients you need, supplementing with B vitamins may help support your nervous system. B12 deficiency is associated with paraesthesia. Check this out with your GP, if you suspect you might be B12 deficient.

Does magnesium help menopause nerve pain?

Magnesium is so important for a range of bodily functions, including the production of energy‚ proteins‚ and DNA. It helps to reduce inflammation, relieves joint pain, muscle cramps, restless leg syndrome, headaches, depression, fatigue, and anxiety and supports better sleep.

Magnesium can be found in most multivitamins, or can taken as a supplement on its own, helping to support muscle and nerve function. Scientists aren't completely sure how magnesium helps alleviate nerve pain. It may have something to do with magnesium's potential influence on inflammation. Magnesium may also block the activation of receptors found in nerve cells that regulate pain.

Consult a specialist a natural herbalist for advice on what may be appropriate for your symptoms.

Natural Treatments for menopause nerve pain or tingling

Traditional Chinese Medicine has used acupuncture for centuries to relieve symptoms of pain - may be something to consider if your menopause nerve pain is causing you discomfort?

Acupuncture may relieve your menopause nerve pain by releasing endorphins, the body’s natural pain-killing chemicals. It is thought to improve circulation, thus helping symptoms of paraesthesia and the underlying stress that may exacerbate other menopause symptoms by working on the part of the brain that controls serotonin, the chemical involved in mood.

When to see your doctor about menopause nerve pain

Whilst any episodes of paraesthesia could be caused by hormonal imbalance, nerve pain, tingling and burning sensations could be caused by other conditions. If your tingling is painful, talk to a doctor right away. So if you have any of the following as well as signs of paraesthesia, seek medical treatment to work out the likely cause.

• Difficulty controlling arms, legs, hands, or feet and problems walking

• Increased urinary urgency or inability to control bladder or bowels

• Muscle weakness or paralysis

• Changes in your vision or speech, slurring

• Fainting or blacking out

• If the tingling is present in more than just one extremity, especially if it’s in half of your body.

Episodes of menopause electric shock sensations, tingling, and nerve pain might be distracting but generally are not considered harmful. Making lifestyle changes, introducing certain foods, and eliminating others may help!

Can HRT help menopause nerve pain?

For those women, whose health history means they are able to take it, HRT brings hormones back into balance, relieving hormone-induced tingling and the anxiety that can cause these sensations.

And the good news is….

These exasperating, tingling, numbing sensations, generally pass once you’ve gone through your menopause transition and hormones have levelled out. For most, menopause and nerve pain is short-lived and harmless. Tweaks to your lifestyle can go a long way to improve your perimenopause nerve pain problems.