Finding Relief from Diabetic Neuropathy Symptoms

Diabetes is one of those conditions that can cast a very wide net over your life. From vision loss to foot ulcers, diabetes can literally impact you from head to toe, often limiting your life and causing chronic pain.

One of the most common diabetes complications is peripheral neuropathy, with about half of people with diabetes developing diabetic neuropathy. If you consider that 40+ million Americans have diabetes, you can see how widespread this problem is.

Since November is National Diabetes Month, the team at Apex Pain Specialists, which includes board-certified pain management specialists Dr. Maziar Massrour and Dr. Naveen Reddy, wants to discuss this important topic. More to the point, we want to dive into some great strategies for finding relief from diabetic neuropathy.

How diabetes impacts your nerve health

Let’s first briefly review how diabetes can lead to damage in your peripheral nerves, which describes any nerves outside your central nervous system. 

To keep these nerves functioning well, your body sends in resources — oxygen and nutrients — through your blood. 

When you have diabetes, your body is unable to control blood sugar levels thanks to insulin resistance and not enough insulin production to overcome the resistance. As a result, you can have high levels of glucose in your blood that can damage delicate blood vessels, including those that service your peripheral nerves, causing them to malfunction.

This effect tends to occur in areas that are farthest from your heart, such as your lower legs and feet and, less commonly, in your hands and arms.

Pain and more: Signs of diabetic neuropathy

In most cases, diabetic neuropathy is progressive and symptoms are mild at first. These symptoms most often include:

• Numbness
• Tingling
• Pain
• Weakness

Over time and without intervention, the nerve damage can worsen and so, too, can your symptoms. In severe cases, people can be left dealing with shooting, burning, and stabbing pain in their extremities.

Finding relief from neuropathic pain

Now let’s get to the productive part of our conversation and review ways in which we routinely help patients to manage diabetic neuropathy.

Of course, the most important step you can take is to work with your primary care provider to manage the glucose levels in your blood to prevent more nerve damage.

In the meantime, there’s a lot that our team can do to manage your pain with:

• Anticonvulsant medications, such as gabapentin
• Antidepressants, which can work to reduce nerve pain
• Topical pain relief medications
• Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) to disrupt the pain messaging

So, if you’re struggling with diabetes-related nerve pain, we invite you to sit down with us to explore your options.

To get that ball rolling, please call our office in Chandler, Arizona, at 480-820-7246 today to schedule a consultation. You can also use our online booking tool to request an appointment.