Diabetic neuropathy is a kind of nerve injury that occurs when you have chronic diabetes. High levels of blood glucose (sugar) may damage many nerves all over your body, including those in your feet. This results in painful diabetic foot symptoms that can sometimes be life-threatening. Most often, diabetic neuropathy causes numbness, leg weakness, and even paralysis of the foot. There are different causes of diabetic neuropathy, and these include heredity, obesity, diabetes, injury to the feet and legs, hypoglycemia, central nervous system damage, and lack of blood flow to the extremities.
Symptoms related to diabetic neuropathy may differ from patient to patient. Some common symptoms include walking with a stick in one hand, incision wounds in the feet, deformities in gait, altered mental status, urinary, and bowel incontinence, decreased vision, heart palpitations or flutter, sweating or trembling, and the sensation of sharp or prickly sensations in the legs, feet, or hands. Some patients also experience chest pain, nausea or indigestion, or problems when feeding. Weight loss, changes in skin color, brittle nails, and hearing problems are also common. These symptoms usually develop slowly over a period of time and worsen with poor eating habits or lack of exercise.
Another group of causes for neuropathies are associated with diseases that affect the peripheral nervous system. Common examples of such diseases are multiple sclerosis (MS), stroke, Parkinson's disease, peripheral neuropathy, alcoholism, corticobasal degeneration, Meniere's disease, and cerebral palsy. The complications resulting from peripheral neuropathy include autonomic dysreflexia caused by a drop in blood pressure; tachycardia, an irregular heartbeat; and autonomic hyperdrive, which are sudden and excessive reactions to physiological stimuli. The complications resulting from alcohol abuse are liver damage, dehydration, and increased blood pressure...Read more