Stage 5: Complete Loss of Feeling
This is the final stage of neuropathy, and it is where you've lost any and all feeling in your lower legs and feet. You do not feel any pain, just intense numbness. This is because there are no nerves that are able to send signals to your brain.
Sharp, jabbing, throbbing or burning pain. Extreme sensitivity to touch. Pain during activities that shouldn't cause pain, such as pain in your feet when putting weight on them or when they're under a blanket. Lack of coordination and falling. Muscle weakness.
Nutritional or vitamin imbalances, alcoholism, and exposure to toxins can damage nerves and cause neuropathy. Vitamin B12 deficiency and excess vitamin B6 are the best known vitamin-related causes. Several medications have been shown to occasionally cause neuropathy.
If you have neuropathy, it's critical that you stay as active as possible. Regular activity and physical fitness promote healthy circulation and make your body more nutritionally efficient, which helps limit the progression of nerve damage and keep symptoms to a minimum.
If the underlying cause of peripheral neuropathy isn't treated, you may be at risk of developing potentially serious complications, such as a foot ulcer that becomes infected. This can lead to gangrene (tissue death) if untreated, and in severe cases may mean the affected foot has to be amputated.
Regular exercise, such as walking three times a week, can reduce neuropathy pain, improve muscle strength and help control blood sugar levels. Gentle routines such as yoga and tai chi might also help. Quit smoking.
Lifestyle choices can play a role in preventing peripheral neuropathy. You can lessen your risk for many of these conditions by avoiding alcohol, correcting vitamin deficiencies, eating a healthy diet, losing weight, avoiding toxins, and exercising regularly.
Treatments for Neuropathy
The peripheral nerves have a great ability to heal. Even though it may take months, recovery can occur. However, in some situations, symptoms of neuropathy may lessen but not completely go away. For example, nerve injury caused by radiation often does not recover well.
If you have peripheral neuropathy, you might experience: changes in the way you walk. loss of balance, which could make you fall more often. loss of muscle tone in your hands and feet.
When those deposits build up, peripheral nerves start to malfunction, and the patient experiences peripheral neuropathy. The disease eventually involves sensory, motor and autonomic nerves, and it is fatal.”
Nerve deterioration from peripheral neuropathy weakens the connected muscles. That can cause paralysis, which may cause difficulty moving the toes, foot drop and hand weakness. Weakness can also affect muscles in the thighs, arms and elsewhere. Muscle atrophy.
Neuropathy can affect nerves that control muscle movement (motor nerves) and those that detect sensations such as coldness or pain (sensory nerves). In some cases, it can affect internal organs, such as the heart, blood vessels, bladder, or intestines.
The outlook for peripheral neuropathy varies, depending on the underlying cause and which nerves have been damaged. Some cases may improve with time if the underlying cause is treated, whereas in some people the damage may be permanent or may get gradually worse with time.
Acute Symmetrical Peripheral Neuropathy Rare, this severe, rapidly developing form of polyneuropathy affects nerves throughout the body and is most often seen in Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the peripheral nervous system and can be fatal.
Smoking and Drinking Alcohol
Heavy drinking makes neuropathy worse. Vitamins and minerals are essential for your body functions but smoking and drinking can alter the level of minerals and vitamins that are needed for proper nerve function.
An exclusive and effective treatment for neuropathy in the legs and feet, The Combination Electro-analgesia Therapy, (CET), has been extremely effective in relieving pain and discomfort, reversing your numbness, and restoring your sensation while improving your acuity, balance, and strength in your hands and feet.
Capsaicin is used to help relieve a certain type of pain known as neuralgia (shooting or burning pain in the nerves). Capsaicin is also used to help relieve minor pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis or muscle sprains and strains.
Duloxetine is the most effective in reducing neuropathic pain. Duloxetine and venlafaxine are associated with increased blood pressure and cardiac conduction abnormalities and therefore should be used cautiously in patients with cardiac disease.
Diabetic neuropathy may distort the control of intestinal motility, which can lead to diverse symptoms such as diarrhoea, constipation, intestinal distension and abdominal pain.
Roughly 20 million Americans are living with neuropathy. Living with daily pain and discomfort can be challenging. People with neuropathy are at a higher risk for depression and anxiety than those without a neurological disorder. The good news is treatable, and a pain management specialist can help.