As the title says. From what I understand, it has to do with cutting off circulation, but why does that affect your sense of feeling in your hand?
In: Biology
It actually has nothing to do with cutting of circulations. Blood is still flowing into your limbs even when they go numb, if this wasn’t the case our limbs would start dying when they fall asleep under us in our sleep.
What does happen is that the nerves that are running to your hand (or any other body part) that are used to transmit information to your brain to “feel” things get pinched/twisted/squeezed in a way that cuts off that flow of information, like a telephone line being cut.
No information from your limb is making it to your brain, so your brain doesn’t know what to “feel” there, so we “feel” nothing and it goes numb. Then once that nerve gets unblocked, a rush of signals that weren’t reaching the brain before now suddenly start getting to it, which makes that pins and needles feeling.
Doctors will actually do this is a form of pain management when doing surgery on arms or legs, they will Intentionally block the nerve That runs to that area to prevent it from sending any pain signals to the brain.
The blood carries nutrients all the cells in that limb, which includes nerve cells. When you cut off circulation for a bit of time, the nerve cells begin to shut down and eventually die. During this shutdown phase, they are unable to send and receive signals, which is why you lose your sense of touch, temperature, and the area goes numb. When you reintroduce blood to the area, the nerves can then send the “something’s wrong” signal, which is the pins and needles sensation you get.
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