What is neuropathy?

Neuropathy is a term that describes pain and other sensations originating in your nerves.

Pain nerves transmit signals to your brain and spinal cord that alert you when you have tissue damage. This is an essential survival mechanism, helping you avoid danger and ensuring you attend to injuries and diseases.

Sometimes pain nerves suffer damage or stop working properly. When this happens, the pain you feel isn’t serving a useful purpose as it’s not alerting you to an injury. For instance, you may feel as though your skin is on fire when you haven’t got any burns.

What symptoms can neuropathy cause?

The affected nerves might transmit other sensations in addition to pain. You may also experience:

• Prickling
• Tingling
• Pins and needles
• Increased sensitivity to touch

In some cases, nerves affected by neuropathy stop working altogether, causing loss of feeling and numbness. This is a common feature of diabetic peripheral neuropathy, a complication that affects people with diabetes.

What might cause neuropathy?

Neuropathy can develop as a symptom of many diseases, including:

• Lupus
• Postherpetic neuralgia 
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Trigeminal neuralgia 
• Celiac disease
• Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease
• Guillain-Barré syndrome
• HIV-associated peripheral sensory neuropathy
• Hormonal disorders
• Kidney failure
• Diabetic peripheral neuropathy

Treatments like chemotherapy can trigger neuropathy, so cancer patients frequently contend with this problem during treatment. Neuropathy might also develop when you’ve had a serious illness, or as a result of poisoning, alcoholism, or nutrient deficiencies.

In some people, it’s not possible to identify a cause for their neuropathy. However, idiopathic neuropathy, as it’s known, is no less painful than other types of neuropathy.

What treatments can help with neuropathy?

Treating any underlying conditions is an important first step when treating neuropathy. Our providers is an expert in managing chronic conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis that sometimes cause neuropathy.

Medication management is also essential. You might need to be on strong painkillers, which requires regular review by our providers. Alternatives to medication are also available, such as radiofrequency ablation and spinal cord stimulation.

If you have nerve damage, orthobiologics can help generate new tissues.

To find out more about effective ways of treating neuropathy, call Pinnacle Pain and Spine or make an appointment online today.