When a person experiences tingling and numbness, it is usually due to nerve compression or stretching. Nerves can be thought of as like wires because they transmit information, but they do not behave like a wire in many respects.

An electrical circuit will continue to work even with the wires being compressed. It is only when the wires are fully severed that the circuit fails.
Nerves, on the other hand, are living tissue, and if they are compressed or stretched, they can malfunction. Tight muscles and extra bone growth are the two most common causes that present in my office.

When you see a nerve on a nerve chart, it is usually shown in yellow. But this nerve is made up of hundreds or thousands of neurons. Neurons are the individual nerve cells, and they can be very long. Up to three feet, maybe longer in a very tall person. Every other cell in the body is very small in height, width, and length, so how can these cells be three feet long? I agree, it’s baffling, but it’s true.

These nerve cells all run parallel, and the more of them there are, the thicker the entire nerve must be. But here’s what’s unique about nerves. They are highly metabolically active and consume a lot of ATP. There must be lots of glucose and oxygen available at every little millimeter along the length of the nerve for the mitochondria in the nerve to make this ATP. If there are tight muscles next to the nerve that are decreasing blood supply to the muscle and the nerve, then ATP production decreases in those areas along the nerve’s length, and the nerve malfunctions in those localized areas. This can result in tingling and numbness. The solution is to loosen the tissues in the areas where the nerve is compressed, stretched, or simply deprived of nutrients.

Let’s get into more detail about fascial anatomy after covering some basics.