I’m struggling to figure out how the first の works in the following sentence:
彼は拍手のしすぎで手の感覚がなくなった。(He clapped too much and his hands lost feeling)
I’m assuming 拍手する or 拍手をする is ‘to applaud’ and adding すぎる makes it ‘to applaud too much’ but why the の?
I think in this sentence, 拍手 is in its noun form. And since it’s しすぎ, that would mean “overdo” (instead of “to overdo”). So I would translate it literally as “overdo of clapping” or more succinctly “overclapping” (which is the same as “clapping too much”).
In this sentence の functions as a substitute for が. However since the noun, 拍手, acts as a modifier for the rest of the clause ending in 手, の is used instead. Changing the particle does slightly nuance of the meaning, though.
Maybe a strange but more literal translation will help 
“His hands lost feeling due to the overdoing of clapping.”
I see. 拍手のしすぎ means ‘overdoing of clapping’.
A very literal translation might be: (as for) him, overdoing of clapping caused sensation of hands to dissapear.
Is the る of すぎる is dropped in casual speech?
It’s the verb stem. Just like the verb stem of 食べる is 食べ and the verb stem of 遊ぶ is 遊び.
So the verb takes the stem form if followed by で?
This says that すぎる can nominalise a verb (verb stem + すぎ).
I guess that answers my question about すぎで.
@siballah で is a particle that can indicate cause. One way to translate this is to say “due to”. I think @mrsaturn’s more literal translation demonstrates this well, which I’ll quote below (emphasis mine):
Yeah, I get the function of で. It was more why すぎる becomes すぎ.
I think it’s just to make it more noun-like.
Yeah, it’s a nounified verb. And the の is frequently used in place of が in embedded clauses.
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