Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
Meralgia paresthetica is a condition characterized by tingling, numbness and burning pain in the outer part of your thigh. The cause of meralgia paresthetica is compression of the nerve that supplies sensation to the skin surface of your upper leg.
Tight clothing, obesity or weight gain, and pregnancy are common causes of meralgia paresthetica. However, meralgia paresthetica can also be due to local trauma or from a disease, such as diabetes.
In most cases, meralgia paresthetica can be relieved with conservative measures, such as wearing looser clothing. In severe cases, treatment may include medications to relieve discomfort or, rarely, surgery.
- NINDS meralgia paresthetica information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/meralgia_paresthetica/meralgia_paresthetica.htm. Accessed Nov. 13, 2008.
- Burning thigh pain (meralgia paresthetica). American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00340. Accessed Nov. 13, 2008.
- Anderson BC, et al. Meralgia paresthetica (lateral femoral cutaneous nerve entrapment). http://www.uptodate.com/jhome/index.html. Accessed Nov. 13, 2008.
- Swanson, J. (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Dec. 3, 2008.
- Compressive Structural Disorders. In: Goetz CG. Textbook of Clinical Neurology. 3rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/114781964-3/786370418/1488/264.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-3618-0..10029-3--s0310_1872. Accessed Dec. 8, 2008.
- Diseases of the Peripheral Nerves: Mononeuropathy, Mononeuropathy Multiplex, and Plexopathy. In: Ropper AH et al. Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology. 8th ed. Boston, Mass.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2005. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=979659&searchStr=mononeuropathies. Accessed Dec. 8, 2008.
- Aminoff MJ et al. Nervous System Disorders: Peripheral Neuropathies. In: McPhee SJ et al. Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2009. 48th ed. San Francisco, Calif.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2009. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=13195. Accessed Dec. 8, 2008.
