Numbness & Tingling Centennial, CO
- Nerve Source Evaluation
- Neck & Low Back Focus
- Neuropathy Care Program
Numbness and tingling are strange complaints to live with, because they are not exactly pain. A hand that falls asleep on the steering wheel, feet that buzz at night, fingers that go dead in the middle of typing. It feels more odd than alarming, so people mention it to nobody for a year, shaking the limb awake and moving on with their day while the episodes quietly get more frequent.
Here is the thing Dr. Tony Nicholas wants every one of those patients to understand: numbness and tingling is all about where it is. The location of the symptom is the map to its source, and the source is usually nowhere near where you feel it. That is the whole logic of how it gets evaluated at Axis Health and Wellness in Centennial.
The Location Is the Map
- 1 In the hands: we evaluate your neck. The nerves that feed your hands exit the cervical spine and travel down the arms, so hand numbness in someone who types, grips tools, or drives all day very often starts at the neck, not the wrist.
- 2 In the feet: we look at the low back, or at the nerves themselves. The nerves of the low back run down into the legs and feet, so foot symptoms can be a spine problem, an entrapment in the lower leg, or neuropathy, where the nerves themselves are being damaged.
- 3 In the face: you get medical attention, immediately. Facial numbness can be a sign of a stroke, and it goes to medical evaluation before anything else happens. No exceptions.
“Numbness and tingling is all about where it’s at. If it’s in the hands, we’re going to evaluate the neck, because the nerves in the neck go down into the hands.”
Dr. Tony Nicholas, D.C.Numb Hands: The Neck Connection
A pinched nerve in the cervical spine does not always hurt at the neck. It can show up instead as tingling fingers on the morning commute, a hand that goes dead overnight, or numbness that creeps in during a long day at the keyboard. Misaligned vertebrae pressing on the nerves feeding the arm are one of the most common findings behind hand symptoms, which is why the exam here starts at the spine and traces the wiring outward.
When the neck is the source, treatment is aimed there:
- Chiropractic adjustments to relieve the pressure where the nerve exits the spine.
- Dry needling in the cervical area for muscle that clamps down around an irritated nerve.
- X-rays first, so the treatment targets what is actually pressing on the nerve instead of a guess.
Numb Feet: Spine, Entrapment, or Neuropathy
Foot symptoms have three usual suspects. Pressure on the nerves of the low back, the same mechanism behind sciatica, can send numbness and tingling down the legs. An entrapment in the lower leg can pinch the wiring closer to where you feel it. And then there is neuropathy, which is different in kind: a progressive condition where the nerves themselves are slowly being damaged, often connected to diabetes.
Neuropathy gets its own approach here, built on three prongs plus a fourth tool, and most of it happens at your house:
- Electrical stimulation to retrain the nerves how to fire correctly.
- Infrared and red light therapy to increase blood flow and bring nutrients to regenerating nerves.
- A nutrition component, giving the nerves what they need to heal, especially where diabetes is in the picture.
- SoftWave therapy in the office to stimulate healing in the affected area.
About 90% of neuropathy care is done at home, in the comfort of your house, with the office handling the SoftWave and muscle stimulation side. Consistency is the whole game with neuropathy: the patients who do the daily home work are the ones who see the results. The full picture is on our neuropathy treatment page.
Get Medical Care First If
- The numbness is in your face, which needs a stroke ruled out immediately.
- It came on with slurred speech, trouble hearing, dizziness, or faintness.
- It followed a trauma, so a fracture or dislocation can be ruled out first.
- It arrived with loss of bowel or bladder control, which is an emergency.
Once the emergencies are off the table, the buzzing feet and sleeping hands are exactly the kind of problem this office traces to its source every week.
How Long It Takes
It depends entirely on which source the exam finds. A pinched nerve in the neck or low back follows the usual structural timeline: more frequent visits at first to calm the pressure, then a step down as things hold, re-evaluated weekly. Neuropathy is a longer, slower project measured in consistent home treatment. Either way, the same rule applies as everywhere in this practice: if you are not improving by around the 8 to 12 visit mark, you get referred to the right specialist rather than re-booked.
What It Costs
The first visit, exam, and treatment is $29, which buys you the actual answer to where your numbness is coming from. We accept all insurance except Medicaid, plus HSA and FSA cards, CareCredit, Cherry, cash, and credit cards, with payment plans available including no interest options.
Numbness & Tingling FAQs
Why do my hands go numb at night or while driving?
Sustained positions are usually the trigger, but the source is often higher up than the hand. The nerves feeding your hands come out of your neck, and a pinched nerve there can make the hands go dead exactly in the positions where the neck is held still, like sleep and steering.
That is why the evaluation here starts at the cervical spine and works outward, instead of starting and ending at the wrist.
Is it carpal tunnel or is it my neck?
That is precisely the question the exam exists to answer, and guessing wrong wastes months. Wrist-level entrapment is real, but hand numbness that starts at the neck is extremely common, and the two get treated in completely different places.
The exam traces the nerve path, x-rays show what the cervical spine is doing, and the treatment goes wherever the pressure actually is.
What exactly is neuropathy?
Neuropathy is a progressive disease of the nerves, where they get damaged and slowly start to die, most often felt first in the feet. Many cases are connected to diabetes, which is why nutrition is a core part of treating it rather than an afterthought.
The approach here combines electrical stimulation to retrain nerve firing, infrared and red light to feed blood flow to the nerves, a nutrition plan, and SoftWave in the office, with about 90% of the work done at home on a daily routine.
Can nerves actually recover?
That is the entire premise the neuropathy program is built on: give the nerves circulation, nutrients, and correct signaling, and support the healing process instead of just numbing the symptom. Results track consistency, which is why most of the treatment lives at home where it can happen every day.
For pinched nerves, the story is simpler. Take the pressure off the nerve and the numbness it was causing typically follows.
When is numbness an emergency?
Numbness in the face needs a stroke ruled out immediately, and the same urgency applies when numbness arrives with slurred speech, trouble hearing, dizziness, or faintness. Loss of bowel or bladder control alongside numbness is also an emergency.
Those all go to medical care first. What comes here is everything else: the hands, the feet, and the buzzing that has no emergency attached, just a source waiting to be found.
How much of the treatment happens in the office?
For pinched nerve cases, most of it: adjustments, dry needling, and re-evaluations happen in the office on a visit schedule. For neuropathy it flips, with roughly 90% of the treatment done at home and the office handling SoftWave, muscle stimulation, and progress checks.
Either way you are set up so the plan runs on your consistency, not on how many appointments fit your week.
Stop Shaking It Awake and Find the Source
A limb that keeps falling asleep is a wiring problem, and wiring problems have locations. Get the exam, trace it to the neck, the low back, or the nerves themselves, and treat the actual source. Axis Health and Wellness serves Centennial, Greenwood Village, Lone Tree, Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Aurora, Parker, Castle Rock, and the south Denver metro.