Immobile Toes and Back Injury

A back injury can affect your legs, feet and toes. Damage to the nerves in the spinal cord can cause numbness or an inability to move the feet. Immobility or numbness in the toes or any body part, especially if it begins suddenly, can be a sign of a serious medical problem. Consult a health-care professional immediately.

SPINAL CORD ANATOMY AND FUNCTION

The spinal cord runs down the spine from the head to the sacrum, or tailbone. The nerves that control your feet and legs branch off the main spinal cord and a back injury can damage those nerves. Nerves are sensory, motor or mixed sensory motor. If a sensory nerve is damaged, you may have numbness, tingling or pain in the affected area. Damage to a motor nerve results in weakness or the inability to move the area affected by the nerve. Mixed sensory-motor nerve injury can result in a combination of these symptoms.

THE LUMBOSACRAL AREA

The low back area and tailbone, also known as the lumbosacral area, supply the nerves that control your legs, feet, pelvis, bowel and bladder. An injury to this area can cause problems in any of the areas controlled by the lumbosacral nerves. The sciatic nerve runs down the back of the leg from the buttock and a back injury can also injure this nerve, causing pain, numbness and foot drop. Even a relatively minor injury can cause swelling around the nerve.

FOOT DROP

Foot drop occurs when you are unable to lift the toes or front part of one or both feet. Generally, foot drop only occurs on one side, although it can occur bilaterally in cases of spinal cord injury. Foot drop results from a weakness or paralysis of the muscles that lift the foot. It is usually caused by an injury to the nerve that controls these muscles, such as a back injury, but it may also be the result of diabetes or some neurological diseases.

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OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Immobility in the toes may or may not be related to a back injury. A spinal cord tumor can compress the nerves that control your legs and feet. Arthritis, cancer, infection or a degeneration of the disks between the vertebrae in your back can also injure the nerves. The damage affects the nerve fibers that pass through the area where the problem is located and can cause impairment of all the muscles and nerves below the site of the problem.