Waking up with numbness or tingling in your hands or wrists is fairly common. In one study, 33 percent of people reported having these sensations at least once a week, especially when they slept with their wrists bent.

Numbness and tingling can have many causes, including pressure on a nerve while you sleep. Even sleep apnea has been connected to numbness and tingling. But the connection isn’t fully understood or well researched yet.

If you’ve been waking up with numbness or tingling, or you experience this sensation sometimes during the day, it’s not something that should be dismissed or ignored. Here’s what you need to know about these nerve symptoms, including when to get medical attention.

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Common Causes of Numbness and Tingling

There’s no strong evidence that shows sleep apnea causes numbness and tingling. Instead, when these sensations occur, it’s likely related to an underlying condition. Here are some alternative causes of numbness and tingling in people with sleep apnea.

Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is one of the most common causes of peripheral neuropathy, or the numbness and tingling that you may experience in your hands and feet. Having high blood sugar for a long time can damage your nerves and eventually cause them to die.

It has been reported that 56 percent of people with diabetes also have OSA. People with sleep apnea may also have a higher risk of developing insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes.

Experts believe that repeated drops in oxygen levels during sleep, pauses in breathing, and frequent sleep disruptions may make it harder for your body to regulate blood sugar. This, in turn, may increase the risk of diabetes.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Carpal tunnel syndrome, which can cause wrist pain, tingling, numbness, and weakness, is a common wrist condition that affects up to 10 million people in the U.S. The condition occurs when your median nerve is irritated or compressed.

Your median nerve, which runs through your carpal tunnel, provides the feeling in your fingers and hands. But when it’s damaged or pressed against the walls of your carpal tunnel, it can send incorrect feelings, like numbness and tingling, to your hand and wrist.

One very small study found that in people with sleep apnea, carpal tunnel and a similar condition at the elbow were the most common neuropathies found. Researchers also noted that treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) helped improve symptoms.

Vitamin B12 Deficiency

When you’re deficient in some nutrients, like vitamin B12, you may also experience numbness and tingling. In fact, vitamin B12 is essential for keeping your nerves healthy and making red blood cells and DNA, the genetic material in your cells.

Without enough vitamin B12, you can experience physical, neurological, and even psychological issues. For instance, you may feel tired and weak. You may also have a hard time remembering things or experience irritability and depression.

There’s even some limited evidence that being low in vitamin B12 may lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, a common symptom of sleep apnea. Even though the two conditions haven’t been connected, if you’re experiencing tingling and daytime sleepiness, have your B12 levels checked.

Medications

Sometimes taking certain medications can affect your peripheral nerves, or the nerves that aren’t located in your brain or spinal cord. Street drugs can affect these nerves, too.

Medications linked to peripheral neuropathy include some used to treat heart conditions and high blood pressure, cancer, infections, autoimmune diseases, seizures, alcohol use disorder, and HIV. Not everyone who takes these medications will develop nerve symptoms.

If you notice new or worsening numbness or tingling after starting a medication, talk with your healthcare provider. Don’t stop taking prescribed medication without medical guidance.

Other Potential Causes

Numbness and tingling can also be caused by other conditions. Some potential causes of this nerve-related damage may include:

• Pinched nerves or trauma
• Alcohol use disorder (a condition that makes it difficult to control alcohol use)
• Toxin exposure
• Multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer that affects cells in the bone marrow)
• Lupus (an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks healthy tissues)
• Guillain-Barré syndrome (rare condition in which the immune system attacks the nerves)
• Chronic kidney disease
• Liver disease

When To Get Immediate Medical Attention for Nerve-Related Symptoms

Numbness and tingling are often temporary, but sometimes they can be a sign of nerve damage or another health problem. Talk with your doctor if these symptoms keep happening, get worse, or come with burning, twitching, electric shock-like sensations, trouble sensing heat or cold, or frequently dropping things.

Get emergency medical help right away if numbness or weakness:

• Starts suddenly, gets worse quickly, or affects only one side of your body
• Affects your face or trunk or occurs around your buttocks or groin
• Comes with facial drooping, trouble speaking, vision changes, severe dizziness, loss of balance, fainting, or a severe headache
• Happens with a fast or irregular heartbeat or sudden problems controlling your bladder

Some of these symptoms can be signs of a serious condition, such as a stroke or significant nerve problem. If you’re unsure how serious your symptoms are, contact a healthcare professional for guidance.

Join the Conversation

On MySleepApneaTeam, people share their experiences with sleep apnea, get advice, and find support from others who understand.

If you have a sleep disorder like sleep apnea and numbness and tingling, how has your healthcare provider recommended you address it? Let others know in the comments below.