Stage Four: Complete Numbness/ Loss of Sensation If a patient does not seek treatment for their neuropathy, they will begin to lose all feeling, and their risk of recurrent wounds and subsequent amputation will increase.
Stage Five: Total Loss of Feeling
By stage five, you've lost all feeling in your lower legs and feet. You're not in any pain because there are no longer any nerves capable of sending signals to your brain. It's hard to walk, and you feel unsteady most of the time.
Stage Four: Total Numbness
You will not be able to walk without help since most of the nerves in your feet are dead. If you do not have assistance, a wheelchair will help to move around. The risk of amputations and complications is highest at this point.
As a specialist in peripheral nerve surgery, Dr. Seruya wants his patients to know that after a period of 12-18 months nerve damage can become permanent.
PN was strongly associated with earlier mortality. Mean survival time for those with PN was 10.8 years, compared with 13.9 years for subjects without PN.
Stage 5 – In this stage, the nerve is very damaged and there is little pain. The feet will be number and weaker. Walking becomes more challenging and in diabetics, the risk of amputation is more common. This is the stage where amputations are most likely to occur.
Peripheral neuropathy is rarely fatal but may cause serious complications if left untreated. These complications may affect a person's life expectancy. A healthcare professional can advise on their condition, their outlook, and how they can manage it.
A nerve injury can affect the brain's ability to communicate with muscles and organs. Damage to the peripheral nerves is called peripheral neuropathy. It's important to get medical care for a peripheral nerve injury as soon as possible. Early diagnosis and treatment may prevent complications and permanent damage.
The signs of nerve damage
Numbness or tingling in the hands and feet. Feeling like you're wearing a tight glove or sock. Muscle weakness, especially in your arms or legs. Regularly dropping objects that you're holding.
The most severe type of nerve injury is an avulsion (A), where the nerve roots are torn away from the spinal cord. Less severe injuries involve a stretching (B) of the nerve fibers or a rupture (C), where the nerve is torn into two pieces.
Axonotmesis is a more severe grade of nerve injury than neurapraxia, and neurotmesis is the most severe grade of peripheral nerve injury.
Injuries can cause it to develop instantaneously or within minutes or hours. Some toxic and inflammation-based forms of peripheral neuropathy may develop rapidly over days or weeks, while most other conditions take months, years or even decades to develop.
Injury to a nerve can stop signals to and from the brain. This can cause muscles to stop working properly and result in loss of feeling. In many cases, nerve injuries can be treated to improve outcomes. However, nerves are very complex structures and do not recover as well as ligaments, tendons, and bones.
Left untreated, nerve damage may worsen over time. It can sometimes start in the nerves farthest from the brain and spinal cord -- like those in the feet and hands.
But sometimes, nerve damage can be permanent, even if the cause is treated. Long-term (chronic) pain can be a major problem for some people. Numbness in the feet can lead to skin sores that do not heal. In rare cases, numbness in the feet may lead to amputation.
Over time, those fibers may undergo degeneration and die, which means the neuropathy is worse because of the loss of more nerve fibers. This may cause increased numbness, but it usually causes the pain to get better. In this scenario, less pain means greater degeneration.
Introduction: Peripheral nerve injury is a common cause of lifelong disability in the United States.
Neuropathy does not result in a disabling condition in every case. You must provide sufficient evidence to the SSA that proves your neuropathy symptoms are so severe that you cannot engage in any gainful activity to support yourself for at least 12 months.
For some, neuropathy symptoms progress rapidly—from asymptomatic to wheelchair-bound within a year or two. For others, neuropathy evolves slowly over many years.
A damaged nerve has the capacity to grow up to a third of an inch in length during recovery, meaning severed nerves can potentially heal and come back together (although it's unlikely they do so without human intervention and stitching).
The more you exercise on a consistent basis, the better your chances are at reducing your nerve pain. Now, it may not be simple at first for some and in fact, may hurt a little. Please don't get discouraged, but rather keep moving forward one small step at a time.
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.
Include fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein in your diet. Avoid excessive alcohol. Alcohol can worsen peripheral neuropathy. Monitor your blood glucose levels.