Diabetic neuropathy is a nerve disorder commonly caused by diabetes. Over time, high blood sugar levels from diabetes can damage nerves throughout your body. Peripheral neuropathy is from damage to the peripheral nervous system. It reduces your ability to sense pain, touch, temperature, and vibration in certain parts of the body and may sometimes affect movement and muscle strength.

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Over time, high blood sugar levels from diabetes can damage nerves throughout your body. The higher your blood sugar levels, the greater your risk of getting neuropathy. The risk of nerve damage also increases as you age and the longer you have diabetes. Excessive use of alcohol may further increase the risk. Around 50% of people who have diabetes will eventually get diabetic neuropathy.1

A diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy is based largely on your symptoms, your medical history, and a neurologic examination. This means your doctor will check how well you feel touch and temperature. Your doctor will also test your strength and your reflexes. Tests such as electromyogram (EMG) and nerve conduction studies may be done to confirm the diagnosis. Additional tests may be needed to identify which type of neuropathy you have and the organ or system affected, and to help guide treatment.

Keeping your blood sugar levels near normal may help prevent neuropathy from ever developing. The best way to do this is by getting to and staying at a healthy weight. Exercising and eating healthy foods are the best things you can do to prevent complications from diabetes. If you have diabetic neuropathy, it is important to take care of your feet and keep your blood sugar levels within a narrow target range. By taking care of yourself, you may prevent neuropathy from becoming worse.

Well Bill, more than 16 million people in the US today have diabetes, and at least half of them suffer from some sort of nerve dysfunction that manifests itself as a chronic and disabling pain. This pain can present itself as a burning, sharp, shooting or knifelike pain or as muscle spasms that can result in loss of feeling and loss of strength in the areas affected. This type of condition is referred to as peripheral neuralgia and is seen quite often in diabetic patients.

A doctor diagnoses neuropathy based on symptoms and a physical exam. During the exam, the doctor may check muscle strength, reflexes, and sensitivity to position, vibration, temperature, and light touch. Sometimes special tests are also used to help determine the cause of symptoms and to suggest treatment. A simple screening test to check point sensation in the feet can be done in the doctor's office. The test uses a nylon filament mounted on a small wand.

NeuropathyRx™ is different from traditional medications used to treat diabetic neuropathy because it is composed of only natural vitamins and minerals. Prescription drugs used to treat diabetic neuropathy can themselves can have unwanted reactions, only cover up the symptoms, do not treat the underlying problem and interfere with other medications.

Neuropathy is a condition that occurs after peripheral nerve damage. Neuropathy may affect a single nerve or several. A common type of neuropathy that occurs in people who have cancer is called peripheral neuropathy. The peripheral nervous system includes the nerves that leave the brain and the nerve that come off the spinal cord and go to the internal organs, limbs and skin. Diseases, injuries and toxins, such as chemotherapy, can cause neuropathy in cancer survivors.

Peripheral nerves are those nerves that are not found within the spinal cord. In peripheral neuropathy there is damage to the nerves causing dysfunction and sensory loss. Symptoms are usually found in the limbs and may include sensations such as pain, pins and needles, numbness, a burning sensation, weakness, and in some instances paralysis. When many nerves are involved the syndrome is called polyneuropathy. There are many causes of peripheral neuropathy, however the cause may not be known.

Your goals are for a healthy lifestyle if you are diabetic. Some recommendations that the providers in our clinic encourage are a cholesterol level under 200, a LDL <70, a blood pressure <135/80. They also recommend that all type 2 diabetics take a baby aspirin a day if your health care provider agrees. More information is available at the diabetes classes. For more information on the classes, click here .

Peripheral neuropathy is not a single disease. It is a general term for a series of disorders that result from damage to the body's peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nervous system sends messages from the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) to the rest of the body: the arms and hands, legs and feet, internal organs, joints and even the mouth, eyes, ears, nose, and skin.

Peripheral neuropathy usually starts with numbness, prickling or tingling in the toes or fingers. It may spread up to the feet or hands and cause burning, freezing, throbbing and/or shooting pain that is often worse at night. The pain can be either constant or periodic, but usually the pain is felt equally on both sides of the body-in both hands or in both feet. Some types of peripheral neuropathy develop suddenly, while others progress more slowly over many years.

The best treatment for neuropathy (numbness, tingling, or pain, usually in the extremities, which can be caused by both HIV and some medications), with a proven track record, is acetylcarnitine (a.k.a. acetyl-L carnitine). For a detailed explanation of the causes and treatments for neuropathy, click here for a PDF from our Health+HIV section of Recommended Reading.

FootHuggers help circulation and offer greater cushioning then other socks. People who suffer with Neuropathy report FootHuggers make a significant improvement in their foot comfort. Less pain as they walk.

Neuropathy is defined as a disease (pathos) of the nerves (neuro). Many symptoms are grouped together in the catch-all diagnosis of neuropathy. Whether it is called idiopathic neuropathy (which means we don't know the cause) or diabetic peripheral neuropathy (associated with diabetes), or poly neuropathy (which means "in many places"), they all have a common cause. The nerves have gone to sleep because they have been temporarily deprived of oxygen (hypoxia).

The types and severity of neuropathy symptoms vary greatly. Determining the amount of peripheral nerve injury just by the amount of symptoms produced is difficult. Peripheral neuropathy can affect the nerves which allow you to tell the position of your hands or feet, the nerves that allow you to sense hot or cold, or the nerves that carry pain sensation. For peripheral neuropathy, symptoms are almost always greatest at night. Common signs and symptoms of peripheral neuropathy include:

The peripheral nerves have a great ability to heal. Even though it may take months, most patients recover. However, in some situations, symptoms of neuropathy may lessen, but not completely go away. Nerve injury caused by radiation often does not recover well. Neuropathy caused by platinum chemotherapy is also difficult to cure — recovery may take 18 months to five years or longer. During recovery of platinum-induced neuropathy, patients may suffer increased symptoms.

The treatment for peripheral neuropathy depends on the cause. If the neuropathy is related to nutritional deficiences, supplements can help. If relted to a medical condition such as diabetes or thyroid dysfunction, treating this can sometimes reverse the neuropathic symptoms. For neuropathy related to chemotherapy, most treatments are supportive, designed to improve symptoms and function.