Meralgia Paresthetica: Causes And Symptoms

Image source: Pixabay.com

If you’re experiencing tingling, numbness, and burning pain in your outer thigh, it could likely be a case of meralgia paresthetica, which is caused by the compression of the nerve that supplies sensation to the skin surface of the thigh.

There’s a range of common causes for this condition, including tight clothing, pregnancy, and obesity or weight gain. Meralgia paresthetica can also be borne out of local trauma or an existing medical condition, such as diabetes. In most instances, the pain can be relieved using conservative techniques, including wearing looser clothing.

Nerves travel throughout the body, carrying messages to and from the brain. Sensory nerves specifically gather and send signals to the brain about your skin, muscles, as well as other tissues. In meralgia paresthetica, a huge sensory nerve in the outer thigh doesn’t have plenty of room to pass through the hip bone or joints.

Image source: Pixabay.com

Spotting the common symptoms of Meralgia paresthetica is important. Usually, you’ll notice the warning signs on just one side of the body, which may experience pain, tingling, numbness or burning. The affected area could be sensitive to light tough rather than to firm pressure and could have high sensitivity to heat.

The symptoms are likely to be mild at first, but as the condition worsens they might involve sharper, shooting pain. In addition, the pain may go away and return for no apparent reason.

Victoria Mondloch, M.D., is a practicing physician who has more than two decades of experience in the fields of family medicine, women’s health, and preventive health and wellness. More on Dr. Mondloch here.

Women’s Health: Facets And Challenges

Image source: Pixabay.com

Women’s health has always been founded on allowing every woman to thrive, meaning enabling her to handle stress, access healthcare services, and nurture herself in all ways possible. This takes on so much importance as women are key to maintaining healthy families, access the health system more than women, and use health services not just for themselves but also on behalf of their children.

Many women become pregnant and give birth, typically act as their child’s primary caregiver, and are affected by elder and long-term care issues more often because of different factors. They also live longer, have higher rates of disability and chronic health issues, and have lower incomes than men on average, putting them at a greater need for health resources such as Medicaid.

Diseases and health challenges common to women include heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. Heart disease is the gender’s leading killer, where they have more subtle symptoms of a heart attack than men. Cancer kills more than 250,000 women in the United States each year, while osteoporosis affects 8 million women over age 50 in the country.

Image source: Pixabay.com

Women’s health is concerned with the different facets of wellness, from diet and exercises to rest and relaxation to reproductive health. It is also crucial for women to undergo regular screening and tests, including estrogen and progesterone tests, breast biopsy, hysteroscopy, pap smear, and pelvic exam.

To obtain proper treatment for chronic disease and other women’s health issues means getting proper health insurance coverage. So, to address disparities in this area, states have also taken steps to improve accessibility, such as expanding Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women and prohibiting insurance policies that discriminate against women.

Victoria Mondloch, M.D., is a practicing physician with three decades of experience focusing on women’s health, family medicine, and preventive health and wellness. She serves with the mission to empower her patients when it comes to working together on medical diagnoses and educating them on the best steps to keep them in tip-top health. More on Dr. Mondloch here.