Diabetic Neuropathy And Its Complications

What is Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy:

Diabetic Peripheral neuropathy or diabetic nerve pain is a peripheral nerve disorder caused by chronically high sugar in the bloodstream due to diabetes (poor blood sugar control). 

Usually, diabetic neuropathy and its complications start in the toes and gradually move their way up, sometimes to the knees, before moving into the hands and arms.

Diabetic neuropathy is nerve damage caused by diabetes. When it affects the arms, hands, legs, and feet, it is known as diabetic peripheral neuropathy. 

These nerves regulate your sense of touch, pain and temperature sensations, and muscle strength.

Diabetic Nerve Pain and its Complications: 

The most common types of diabetic peripheral neuropathy result in problems with uncomfortable sensations like diabetic nerve pain, diabetic leg pain, foot pain, foot cramps, pins & needles, and tingling in the feet and legs, and later on in the hands and arms.

Diabetic neuropathy and its complications can develop slowly after many years of diabetes or may occur early in the disease. 

What does Diabetic Foot Pain & Diabetic Leg Pain Feel Like? 

Diabetic Neuropathy Symptoms

Burning or sharp diabetic nerve pain, generally in the feet and legs, feet and hands feeling the cold, hands feeling hurtful and intense, burning inside the legs, foot cramps, throbbing in the affected body part, or loss of feeling, especially in the hands and feet, pins & needles, burning all over the body, burning within the body, prickling or electric shocks, etc. are all common diabetic neuropathy symptoms.

Other diabetic neuropathy symptoms include losing feeling in your fingers and toes if you have peripheral diabetic neuropathy. As a result, you may need help keeping your balance. In addition, things that require coordination, such as walking or fastening buttons, may need to be fixed.

Over time, high blood glucose levels, also called blood sugar, and high levels of fats, such as triglycerides, in the blood from diabetes can damage your nerves.

Maybe you’ve just been diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy. Or perhaps you’ve been living with diabetic nerve pain for a while. But it would be best if you took action now to treat it. Diabetic neuropathy symptoms will not go away on their own. 

You must start taking one or more of the following proven and effective natural treatments:

►Medically approved and time-tested safe and effective total herbal diabetic neuropathy treatment to rejuvenate injured nerves and reverse peripheral diabetic neuropathy. 

►The best natural treatment for nerve damage PEMF – Magnetic Therapy for neuropathy is an effective and medically proven diabetic neuropathy treatment and diabetic nerve pain reliever to cure and reverse peripheral neuropathy, idiopathic neuropathy, and diabetic neuropathy.

Diabetes is the most common cause of peripheral diabetic neuropathy, affecting as many as 50% of patients with type 1 and type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. 

Peripheral diabetic neuropathy may be more prevalent in people with difficulty managing their blood sugar levels and high blood pressure, overweight, and over 40 years old.

Recent studies have concluded that about 90% of all people with diabetes will eventually develop diabetic neuropathy and its complications. Yet this nerve damage, diabetic leg pain, and diabetic nerve pain are not inevitable.

Studies have shown that people with diabetes can reduce their risk of developing nerve damage, diabetic nerve pain, and diabetic neuropathy and its complications by taking a medically proven and clinically tested all-natural treatment ( diabetic neuropathy treatment) for diabetic peripheral neuropathy and by strictly keeping their blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible and reducing their weight. 

What Is Pre-Diabetic Neuropathy?

Presently medical studies are exploring a link between pre-diabetes (impaired glucose tolerance or IGT) and peripheral neuropathy. 

Approximately 10% of adults in America have what is being called “pre-diabetes” or “borderline diabetes”—a condition where the body has higher than normal blood sugar levels but not high enough to be diagnosed as actual diabetes.

If left untreated, people with pre-diabetes are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and diabetic nerve pain (which could result in pre-diabetic neuropathy and its complications)

Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy Occurs in the Following Steps:

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy and diabetic nerve pain are one of the long-term complications of diabetes, and it happens in the following steps:

Step № 1. Excessive Sugar or carbohydrate Consumption:  When you eat excessive amounts of sugar or carbohydrates, your body’s mechanism may struggle to digest and efficiently break down sugar and fats, causing them to remain at a high concentration in your bloodstream.

Step № 2: Hormonal System Struggles to Adapt:  Your body attempts to adapt to high blood sugar levels by boosting the production of digestive hormones, like insulin, that process sugar & fats, such as triglycerides, and transport them into the cells for energy.

Step № 3: Desensitization of Hormonal System: Chronically high blood sugar levels from a diet heavy in sugar or carbohydrate desensitize your body’s hormonal response, significantly impairing its ability to digest and remove sugar & fats from the bloodstream.

Step № 4: High blood Sugar & Fats: High blood sugar and lipids weakens the walls of the small blood vessels (capillaries) that supply the nerves with oxygen and nutrients. Thereby nerves are damaged. Damaged nerves may stop sending messages to different parts of your body. 

Nerve damage can cause health problems ranging from mild numbness and pins & needles, foot cramps, tingling in feet and legs, and diabetic leg pain, making it hard to do everyday activities. In the long term, this causes damage to organs, nerves, and blood vessels.

Risk factors – What Causes Diabetic Neuropathy:

– Why Diabetic Neuropathy Occurs

Current studies suggest that your risk of diabetic peripheral neuropathy and diabetic nerve pain is greater if you have type 1 or 2 diabetes. Several other factors may increase your risk of diabetic nephropathy, including:

● High blood sugar (hyperglycemia) that’s not well-controlled

● High blood pressure (hypertension) that’s not controlled

● Being a smoker

● Advanced age

● High blood cholesterol

● A family history of diabetes and kidney disease

● Heavy alcohol intake

● Body Mass Index (BMI) or obesity (waist circumference) is significantly more associated with neuropathy.

Why Is Diabetic Neuropathy Painful and Worse at Night?

Lack of blood supply and nutrients and high blood sugar in your vascular system are toxic to your nerves. When nerves are damaged and misfiring, you may feel tingling, pins & needles, burning, or sharp stabbing diabetic nerve pain. 

These are often much worse at night. As per the scientific research, this is due to the following:

1. Change in Body Temperature: Your body’s temperature drops while sleeping. This temperature change is the cause that triggers diabetic nerve pain in your legs, arms, and hands. Healthy nerves would typically send signals to the brain that indicate coldness. However, because of your damaged nerves, those signals instead come across as foot cramps, tingling, pins & needles, burning sensation, or diabetic nerve pain.

2. You Aren’t Distracted from the Nerve Pain: You’re not focused on work, reading, television, talking to your spouse, playing with your children, or any other activity. Once you notice that your legs, hands, feet, or arms hurt, you may start to have complete focus on the diabetic nerve pain.

Types of Diabetic Neuropathy and its Complications:

Diabetic neuropathy is the name given to nerve damage caused by diabetes. It can affect different types of nerves in your body, including your sensory, autonomic, and motor nerves.

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy and its complications can cause problems and side effects in many different parts of your body, depending on the type of nerve affected. Three groups of nerves can be affected by diabetic neuropathy:

№ 1. Sensory Neuropathy

Sensory diabetic peripheral neuropathy affects the nerves that carry messages of touch, temperature, pain, and other sensations from the skin, bones, and muscles to the brain. It mainly affects the nerves in the feet and the legs, but people can also develop this type of neuropathy in their arms and hands. 

Diabetic neuropathy in later stages causes burning or shooting pains – these may be worse at night.

Symptoms and side effects of Sensory diabetic neuropathy can include:

Tingling and numbness, because of numbness, a patient may not realize that they have stepped on a small object and cut the skin.

● Pins and needles, prickling, pinching, buzzing, etc

● Cold

● Deep stabs

● Loss of ability to feel pain, to detect changes in temperature

●Loss of coordination – when you lose your joint position sense

● Burning or shooting pains – these may be worse at night time.

●If ignored, minor injuries may develop into infections or ulcers. That’s why it’s essential to look after your feet when you have diabetes.

Individuals with diabetes are more at risk for serious foot complications such as diabetes foot, some of which can lead to the loss of function in a limb or even amputation, exceptionally when they’re not cared for promptly.

If you have diabetic peripheral neuropathy, you’re more at risk of developing Charcot’s foot. This is one of the severe foot complications caused by diabetes.

№ 2. Motor Neuropathy

Motor diabetic neuropathy affects the nerves which control movement. Damage to these nerves leads can lead to problems and side effects such as:

● Muscle weakness and loss of muscle tone in the feet and lower legs could cause loss of balance or problems with tasks such as fastening buttons.

● Changes in foot shape that can lead to areas of increased pressure

● Muscle wasting, where muscle tissue is lost due to lack of activity

● Muscle twitching and foot cramps.

● Deformities (such as bunions or hammertoes) may cause shoes to rub against toes, creating a sore

№ 3. Autonomic Neuropathy

Autonomic diabetic peripheral neuropathy affects nerves that carry information to your organs and glands. They help to control some functions without you consciously directing them, such as stomach emptying, bowel control, heart beating, and sexual organs working.

Autonomic diabetic neuropathy causes damage to these nerves. This can result in the following side effects and complications:

● Dryness in Mouth (Xerostomia): Dryness in the mouth, especially as a person with diabetes, can lead to rampant tooth decay.

● Constipation

● Dry eyes

● Obstructive Sleep Apnea

● Dry skin, feet, and cracked skin

●Problems with sweating, either a reduced ability to sweat and intolerance to heat or sweating related to eating food (gustatory)

● Irregular heartbeats

●Gastroparesis – when food can’t move through the digestive system efficiently; symptoms of this can include bloating, constipation, or diarrhea

● Loss of bladder control, leading to urinary incontinence

● Sexual Dysfunction: Unfortunately, sexual dysfunction is prevalent in people with diabetic neuropathy. A significant form of nerve damage manifests as sexual dysfunction. This can cause erectile dysfunction in men and the loss of libido & vaginal dryness in women.