Dead arm

[Pootle]

If you sleep on one of your limbs, for example, your hand and it becomes 'dead', no feeling, is it possible to do this for such a long time to the point that you cut off the supply of blood so much that it is rendered actually dead, i.e it is in fact useless and cannot ever be used again?

[stewey]

The sensation of 'pins and needles' has nothing to do with blood flow. It is caused by compression of a nerve or nerves followed by the release of that pressure.

[B00]

I sincerely doubt it.

I recently broke my wrist, and in order to set it they put something akin to a blood pressure cuff on my forearm to numb the entire arm (i believe the medical term for this procedure is called a Biers Block) and you wouldn't believe the amount of pressure that was applied to the arm to numb it- far more than any actual (normal) body weight.

[andy-hughes]

Your own sense of survival would prevent you from unconciously harming yourself permanently - certainly by sleeping.

As advised,it is unlikely that simple body weight would cause the permanent loss of blood circulation to a limb - although in some circumtances, this can happen.

There was a climber who caughthis arm between two rocks, and he was forced to amputate it in order to free himself and find help. he did say that the 'deadness' meant that the amputation was painless - at the time anyway.

[stewey]

Yes, Boo, but what caused the numbness was not so much the lack of blood flow but the nerve-blocker which they injected into you.

[TEAK36]

I am fairly sure it is possible to render the arm dead.
A guy I knew about 15 years ago collapsed (due to drug overdose) unconcious (spelling?)in his flat. He fell in such a nawkward way that he restricted the blood flow to his hand. He was lying unconcious overnight and only awoke in Hospital. He caused some really serious damage to his hand and came very close to losing it. I remeber seing him several weeks later and his hand was still like a balloon with all the skin peeling off.

[Panic Button]

I once turned on my front in my sleep, and cut off the blood supply to both arms.

When I woke I couldn't roll myself at all for a while as both arms were 'dead'.

Horrible. Scared the crap out of me.

I sort of rocked myself so that some blood got through and a bit of strength returned.

[woodchopper]

The thing is with cutting off the blood supply to a limb is that while the blood is cut off - toxins can build up in the limb that normally would have been removerd by the blood - once the restriction has been removed - the toxins can overload the heart and stop it - an example would be where a rock climber fell and his saftey harness saved him but the harness restricted the blood flow to his legs during the several hours that it took to rescue him.