Why are my feet falling asleep while I'm exercising?

[WhyNot]

Ow ow ow!

I'm trying this "exercise" thing. I'm dubious. I'm not one of those people who finds that exercise makes them feel good. (Weirdos.) But I also don't think it should be causing this odd symptom: my feet are falling asleep. While I'm using them. Pins and needles and numbness and then extreme achiness. Starts with the little toe and works its way across the toes and then up to the ankle. The pins and needles wear off almost immediately when I stop, but the pain doesn't.

Happens when I walk faster than I'd like to (that is, fast enough to raise my heart rate) or when I use the Gazelle. I've tried larger shoes, wider shoes, more supportive, less restrictive, etc. Doesn't happen when I dance to sweaty exhaustion or when I walk at a moderate pace.

I weigh twice what I should, and I don't want to. But the ouchy foot thing is way too easy an excuse to not exercise.

[Harlequin]

My foot (only one at a time and neither one more often than the other) sometimes go numb when I'm exercising, but I never get the pain you describe. When I stop and the sensation comes back it's accompanied by the familiar prickly feeling when a limb has been asleep, but that's all.

You don't get it when you dance vigorously. My first thought there is that dance is often done after alcohol has been imbibed, and alcohol is a decent anaesthetic. If you often dance sober, I've got no clue for you.

[WhyNot]

My foot (only one at a time and neither one more often than the other) sometimes go numb when I'm exercising, but I never get the pain you describe. When I stop and the sensation comes back it's accompanied by the familiar prickly feeling when a limb has been asleep, but that's all.

You don't get it when you dance vigorously. My first thought there is that dance is often done after alcohol has been imbibed, and alcohol is a decent anaesthetic. If you often dance sober, I've got no clue for you.

No, no alcohol. I think it's that there's more freedom of movement, maybe? It's worst on the Gazelle, where my legs and arms are pumping but my feet themselves don't move much. I've never tried an elliptical, but it's kind of like that, only out and back instead of up and down.

[Harlequin]

It's worst on the Gazelle, where my legs and arms are pumping but my feet themselves don't move much.

That's strange. I'd think it would be more likely to happen during running, for example, when you constantly pound your feet against the surface. Wish I could help, but I'll have to pronounce myself clueless.

[SmartAleq]

Have you talked with your doctor to rule out any vascular incompetence? If you have blood pooling in your feet but your circulatory system is compromised to the point where it can't move the blood back up unless you're really seriously getting your heart rate up (like when you're dancing) that could be an explanation. Has this always happened, or is there a time frame you can point to where it started? Can you correlate that with a milestone in your weight?

My WAG outside of circulatory problems is edema--I have a problem with my fingers swelling when I hike if I get over a certain weight. Perhaps you have swelling in the feet that's causing your shoes to pinch a nerve and producing the tingles. If you walk barefoot do you get the problem?

[criminey.jicket]

So it's worst on the Gazelle, where your feet pretty much maintain complete contact with the foot pedals; some pain on fast walking; less pain on slow walk or dancing.

IANAD, but it sounds like a vascular compression/blood flow impedence issue, somewhat like I experienced while I was losing the 30 pounds--it went away with the weight. A pins and needles sensation indicates a reduced blood flow, just like falling asleep on your arm. Numbness indicates a highly reduced blood flow.

You feel the least pain when dancing because you're changing your balance and lifting your feet off the ground quite often. With slow walking your feet are being lifted up off the ground and then forward in a slower stride. Both result in your feet having less time under load and so a reduced pins and needles feeling.

[WhyNot]

That sounds like it, criminey.jicket. I am prone to edema that stops just short of pitting (i.e., the doctors don't care to treat it), but I'm actually having less edema the last few days that I've worked out, so I'm not too concerned with vascular incompetence. Seems like the blood vessels are okay, and the lymph vessels are actually happier and more productive now that I'm moving more - which makes sense; skeletal movement is how lymph flows.

I'm glad to hear it went away as you lost the weight, cj. I'll definitely keep at it, then.

I'm trying this thing this week that a trainer recommended - 10 to 15 minutes of exercise 6 or 7 times a day instead of 30-60 minutes once. More "workouts", more total time spent with an elevated heart rate, but less duration, so I don't feel dead at the end of it and it's easier to get back on it again. And since my feet really start feeling it around 12 minutes, that's only a few minutes of ouchiness, which I can handle. According to the trainer, this many small workout plan is good for the morbidly obese like me both in terms of motivation and client compliance as well as raising my base metabolism and keeping it raised all day, even during the time between workouts. Her claim is that I'll see better results with this method than the same amount of exercise all at once. We'll see!

[phouka]

The same exact thing happens to me. I figured it was nerve compression, not vascular compression.

Oh, well. If you ever get a definitive answer, let me know.

[sublight]

I'm not a doctor, though I have played one on TV.

My first thought would have been that a nerve is getting pinched off, perhaps from your shoes being too tight in just the right (or wrong) spot or simply not fitting right. I get this (along with the sensation that my feet are burning up) when my laces are too tight across the tops of my feet, and in my fingers when I bike without gloves.

I don't know about the pain part of it, so the vascular compression idea could well be worth looking into. Still, try adjusting how your shoes fit and see if that makes any difference. Ideally, they should be snug enough so that your feet don't slip and get blisters, but not really tight.

ETA: and after clicking on your Gazelle link, I remembered that I used to get a numb sensation in my feet way back when I used an elliptical machine, which is a similar design. I don't remember any lasting pain, though.

[susan]

Intermittent claudication? Calcium deficiency? Need for coenzyme Q? Diabetes? All possibilities that should be checked out.

[beebs]

Is it possible that you've set up this Gazelle device on top of a family of raccoons?

Solution: soak your feet in wolf urine before exercising.

[ulfhjorr]

Aroo?

[loach]

Look up Elliptical Trainer Sleepy Foot Syndrome. http://ezinearticles.com/?Elliptical-Tr ... e&id=78854

I asked this question on the Dope a while ago and I got all the fatal diseases it could be. But someone posted about this most common reason.

[WhyNot]

Ooh, very nice, Loach! Thanks. So criminey.jicket was right. I did find, after we talked, that picking up my toes on the forward stroke and my heels on the backstroke does delay the effect. And bonus - my calves are suddenly rock-solid!

[Hatshepsut]

So WhyNot, does your trainer say this 10-15 minutes, 6 or 7 times a day method is good only if you need to lose substantial weight, or is it good if your weight is normal, too? And if you are running on a treadmill instead of whatever this Gazelle thingy is?

I ask because there are some days when I might prefer that kind of schedule to half an hour at a time, and since I work at home, I could do it. But I have a treadmill, and I find it takes a couple of minutes to work up to a good speed, so I'm afraid the first part of each 10-15 minute bout wouldn't count for much.

Sounds like a great exercise plan for anyone with ADD, though!

[MsRobyn]

I can't do the 10-15 minute, six or seven times a day thing because I prefer to go to a gym and I can't do that that often. Since I am blessed with low blood pressure and low heart rate to begin with, it often takes me 15 minutes at a decent pace with a good incline just to hit the target heart rate, so that wouldn't work for me for that reason, too.

One piece of advice that I will share is to find a shoe store that caters to runners. There's one in my podunk town, so there should be at least one in Chicago. They can make recommendations on which shoes work best for you, and show you how to lace them for the best fit. Good shoes ain't cheap (mine cost $100), but they're worth it.

[WhyNot]

So WhyNot, does your trainer say this 10-15 minutes, 6 or 7 times a day method is good only if you need to lose substantial weight, or is it good if your weight is normal, too? And if you are running on a treadmill instead of whatever this Gazelle thingy is?

Well, we were talking about me specifically, so I didn't ask. I read about it in, I think, Prevention or Fitness or somesuch and I asked about it and she got very excited and told me I should totally do it. As she told it to me, my metabolism is so "slow"* that getting my heart rate up multiple times a day will help keep it up even between workouts. She seems to be right - I can feel an elevated heart rate for at least 15 minutes after I stop, and I assume it's a little bit elevated longer when I'm not feeling it.

I need about three steps to get my heart rate up these days, so that's not an issue for me. The one thing she did say, though, and this might be controversial, is that for the Gazelle or for walking, not to bother with a warm-up time. Just get in there and get going. Possibly this is because even my "get going" is still pretty moderate compared to fit people, but she also mentioned a study showing that warm ups decrease the effort expended and calories burned during walking, and didn't decrease injuries. (This was for walking only, mind you. Don't know if it applies to weight training or running.)

Sorry I don't have any cites or anything. This was all based off a discussion with a trainer who was in my Anatomy and Phys. class.


*I prefer to think of my metabolism as perfectly efficient: every single calorie I consume is accounted for and stored as fat if I don't use it immediately. My poop wouldn't burn. :wink:

[beebs]

I find it odd that you are discounting my raccoon theory.

They are really nasty animals, especially under excercise equipment.