Please Scroll Down to See Forums Below 
Mattress is new. Cost me over 3gs. Gh...I only take my recommended 1iu per day.
Bros, why does this happen to me and what does it mean?
- Thread starter Smokescreen
- Start date
U
Ulcasterdropout
Guest
I wake up with numb hands all the time, prolly cuz I sleep all contorted and shit
athlete.03
New member
This is a very bizarre experience. It happened to me for about a year when I was 18 and 19. I was completely natural but putting on muscle rapidly. Whenever I woke up, my hands and arms would be 'asleep' even though I had not been laying on them. It must be due to circulation. My best guess is that it is an interaction between accellerated hypertrophy and the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.
When you sleep, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated and blood moves from your muscles to the internal organs. This is part of homeostasis. When your muscles are growing rapidly, they are starved for nutrients (blood) and often full of waste products which also makes them need more blood. What relatively little blood is in your extremeties is probably being used: held up in your major muscle groups in unusually high concentrations, hence the hands etc. may be getting so little blood that they're falling asleep. M'kay.
Is there a doctor in the house to corroberate this?
When you sleep, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated and blood moves from your muscles to the internal organs. This is part of homeostasis. When your muscles are growing rapidly, they are starved for nutrients (blood) and often full of waste products which also makes them need more blood. What relatively little blood is in your extremeties is probably being used: held up in your major muscle groups in unusually high concentrations, hence the hands etc. may be getting so little blood that they're falling asleep. M'kay.
Is there a doctor in the house to corroberate this?
B
BrothaBill
Guest
athlete.03 said:
Naw, its far more simple problem than that, the cause is elusive but the mechanism is common. Just that your blood pools on one side of the body as you lay still. Our body will naturally compensate by tossing while we sleep, thats the reason why we do that. Now why you arent naturally and unconsciuosly doing that while you sleep is the question. Hardly a big deal though. I saw a homeless man as a patient that got so drunk that that the feedback mechanism was dulled, so he didnt roll over when he should have and permanently caused damage do his arm resulting in nerve and muscle damage. But thats not going to happen in your case.
What to do about it, I dont think there's any way to know b/c we dont know why you are not moving enough while you sleep. Who knows why people get it and in what scenarios.
do you snore? could you possibly have sleep apnea?
athlete.03
New member
BrothaBill said:
That's interesting. It sounds like you definetly have some knowledge of medicine. I wonder, though, would that explain the "falling asleep" of his pecs? It seems like that area, not being an extremety, would get a good deal of blood flow independent of the position he slept in. What do you think?
B
BrothaBill
Guest
athlete.03 said:
Really itd just be a guess over the internet as to the extent it is his pecs or just slight numbness, I mean there really is no way to really know what he exactly is complaining of. I mean if he went to a specialist that examined him then and took a proper history and such and did tests to rule things out then he would have a better answer. I just related as to what you were saying and your theory, then tried to explain some reasons why we toss and turn and such.
His question I really dont have enough info and its just conjecture really. If it was his pec, then youd have to ask 'is it on the same side that you are lying on?' Does it only affect one side or is bilateral numbness, questions to pin it down more would affect any opinion. Really cant answer it. The old saying in medicine applies though, '....if you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras' so thats why I just suspect its a circulation issue from lack of tossing and turning as he normally should. The problem with that saying is of course the fact that there are plenty of zebras that can be had in medicine and thats why proper medical care is needed to asess issues.
I dont work in sleep though so I would have to defer to Juicedmohawk on more indepth sleep talk, I just know from cardiovascular standpoint, the field, I work in, that vascular issues are affected by gravity and movement.
athlete.03
New member
BrothaBill said:
I hear you. Your take on it definetly makes sense. I have wondered about this issue for years (since it happened to me).
Just a dialectic here and certainly not a challenge, but you mentioned that one of the functions of tossing and turning in your sleep is to assist in a relatively uniform circulation.
When and only when this phenomenon was happening to me, I would almost always wake up completely off of my futon and on the floor, sometimes on the other side of my room. I never sleep walked, however.
Now, if you toss and turn for the purpose you stated AND my theory about parasympathetic/hypertrophic interaction is correct, it would follow that during that time my body, in an attempt to better circulate my 'hungry' limbs, would toss and turn to the extreme degree that it did.
In short, some of your statements suggest, at least to me, that my thinking may be accurate on this. Based only on my personal experience, of course.
Similar threads
