Some of the symptoms of perimenopause are big and famous. This one is small, strange and easy to dismiss: a hand that is dead when you wake, pins and needles in the feet, a jolt like static under the skin, a feeling of something crawling that is not there. In the two posts quoted below, it arrives as one line in a list.
Before any of that, the part that cannot wait.
When numbness means go now
Call emergency services now if any of these come on suddenly. Do not drive yourself, and do not wait to see whether it passes.
- Numbness or weakness on one side of the face, one arm or one leg
- A face that droops on one side, or a smile that is lopsided
- Slurred speech, confused speech, or trouble understanding what people are saying
- Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Sudden trouble walking, loss of balance or coordination
- A sudden, severe headache unlike any you have had
Face, arms, speech, time: if one of the first three is there, the fourth is the one that matters.
Also go now if numbness or tingling comes with chest pain, pressure or breathlessness; if weakness is climbing up both legs over hours or days; or if there is numbness between the legs, in the area you would sit on, or new trouble controlling your bladder or bowel.
See a clinician this week, not someday, if the numbness is one-sided and does not go away, if it is spreading, if a hand is weak or you are dropping things, if it follows a fall or a knock to the head or neck, or if it began after starting any new medication.
Everything below is for the other kind: the recurring, frustrating, odd kind, once those have been ruled out.
Why do I get numbness, tingling or electric-shock feelings?
Numbness, tingling and electric-shock feelings are written about often in perimenopause communities, usually as one item in a list of symptoms a woman did not expect and did not connect to anything. What those posts cannot tell you is what is causing yours. Tingling has a long list of possible causes, some of them simple and some of them worth catching early, and the honest position is that it gets checked once, properly, and then managed.
Here is how it sounds when it arrives as part of the list:
Heart pounding at 3am for no reason - Electric shock feeling under my skin - Ears randomly crackling (like Rice Krispies) - Burning tongue with nothing to see - Shoulder freezing overnight … Turns out every single one of these is textbook perimenopause. It took me seeing 3 doctors to find that out.
That post scored 396 and drew 248 comments. Note the last line. The three doctors are as much a part of the story as the shocks.
And this one, from a woman who went home and did the reading herself:
I've seen 6 doctors in the past year and only ONE mentioned hormonal changes to me. … I come home and do a deep dive on research and oh my freaking god. Tingling, hair loss, heart palpitations, insomnia, anxiety, vaginal atrophy- ALL perimenopause symptoms!
That one scored 272. Tingling is the first word in her list.
What do women describe?
The posts sort into three rough kinds, and it is worth knowing which one is yours, because they get asked about differently.
Hands and feet, especially at night
A hand, or a few fingers, numb or buzzing on waking. Feet that tingle in bed. An arm that has gone dead from the elbow down. Often it shakes off within minutes; sometimes it lingers into the morning.
The zaps
Brief jolts, described as static, an electric shock, a flicker under the skin or a buzz in the head. Over in a second. They came up 162 times in the posts we counted, far fewer than tingling, which may be part of why women who get them assume they are the only one.
Crawling skin
A sensation of something moving over or under the skin when nothing is there. It has a name, formication, and it came up 106 times. It sits close to the whole-body itch that women describe in perimenopause, and the article on itchy skin and strange symptoms covers that side of it.
What can I test on myself this week?
None of this replaces the appointment. These are the small, practical levers that are yours to pull while you wait for one, and each of them also produces information worth taking with you.
Notice which hand, and which side you slept on
If it is your hands at night, the first question is position. Which hand. Which side you were lying on. Whether that arm was under the pillow, under your head, or folded tight against your chest. Whether your wrists were curled.
For two weeks, try sleeping with your arms down by your sides or loosely in front of you, wrists straight rather than bent. A soft pillow hugged against the chest can stop arms creeping up under the head. Write down each morning whether the numbness happened and on which side. If it changes with position, that is useful. If it does not, that is useful too.
Watch the wrist in the day
Count the hours your wrists spend bent: phone held up in one hand, a mouse, a steering wheel, a laptop on the knees, knitting, gardening, a long session at the sink. For a week, break up anything over half an hour, put the phone down rather than holding it up, and keep the wrist level with the forearm at the desk. Note whether the night numbness follows the busy-wrist days.
Water before the coffee
Test whether your episodes follow the days you drank little and leaned on coffee: a full glass of water before the first coffee, water with each meal, and a note of how much you drank alongside each episode. If nothing changes in two weeks, you have ruled one thing out.
Write every episode down
This is the most useful single thing on the page. For each episode: the time, where in the body, one side or both, how long it lasted, what you were doing, how you slept, what you had eaten and drunk, and where you were in your cycle. Two weeks of that turns "I get funny tingling" into something a clinician can work with. The article on how to track symptoms for an appointment has a simple layout for it.
Look after the night
Broken sleep makes everything harder to judge, including whether a sensation is new or worse. The levers in the article on waking at 3 a.m. apply here as well.
What commonly gets checked
Tingling is one of those symptoms where the clinician will want to rule out several ordinary things before settling on a story, and it helps to know the shape of that conversation before you are in it.
Expect questions about where it is, one side or both, how long it lasts, and what makes it better or worse. Expect a look at your hands, wrists, arms and neck, and possibly your feet, reflexes and strength. And it is reasonable to ask whether blood tests make sense for your B12, thyroid, blood sugar and iron, and whether anything you take, prescribed or bought over the counter, could be playing a part. That last question matters especially if the zaps arrived after you started, came off or changed a medication.
If your periods have also become heavier, say so in the same breath. It belongs in the same conversation.
When it is not perimenopause
Assume nothing until it has been looked at.
The go-now list at the top of this page is the part that matters most, and it is worth reading twice. Beyond that, the rule of thumb is simple: one-sided, spreading, persistent, or weak means a clinician soon, whatever else is going on in your body this year.
The thing nobody tells you
The strange symptoms are the ones women are most likely to keep to themselves. A hot flush has a name and a punchline. A hand that goes dead at three in the morning, or a jolt under the skin, sounds like something you would be embarrassed to describe out loud.
Describe it anyway. Write it down, rule out the things worth ruling out, and test the small levers that are yours. Most of the work on this one is noticing, and noticing is something you can start tonight.