Your Elbow and Numbness & Tingling in Your Hand & Fingers

Numbness and tingling down one or both of the arms is a pretty common symptom in a chiropractic office, and can often be correct by an adjustment to one or more vertebrae in the lower part of the cervical spine (neck), sometimes even a misaligned first rib.

Further down the arm—like the forearm, wrist, hand, and fingers for example—and numbness and tingling is probably stemming from the elbow.

There are two bones in your forearm called the radius and ulna that, along with your humerus, comprise the elbow. And they can misalign just as easy as any other bone in the body.

If you look at your hand with your palms facing up, the radius is on the outside of your forearm. When that misaligns, it can interrupt proper nerve transmission to the thumb, index finger, middle finger, and outside half of your ring finger, along with the outside part of your palm.

With your palm facing up, the ulna is on the inside of the forearm and is the bony point that you think of as your elbow. When this misaligns, it can negatively affect the inside half of the ring finger and entire pinky finger, along with the inside aspect of your hand.

So, the moral of the story is that if you feel numbness and tingling in some parts of your hand and not others, or numbness and tingling in some fingers and not others, it might be anything more serious than a simple elbow misalignment.