Our Services / Neuropathy

What is neuropathy?

Neuropathy is nerve damage within your peripheral nervous system, which includes the nerves that lead all over your body. Your peripheral nerves relay signals to and from your brain, so they're vitally important for many functions. That means that peripheral nerve damage can cause serious symptoms.

What are the symptoms of neuropathy?

There are more than 100 types of peripheral neuropathy, and the symptoms can vary with the specific type. There are three different kinds of nerves in your peripheral nervous system, and the peripheral neuropathy symptoms can be specific to the nerves they affect.

Sensory nerves

Sensory nerves control feelings, from pain sensations to temperature and touch. If peripheral neuropathy affects your sensory nerves, you may have pain, tingling, burning, or skin-crawling sensations. You could also experience numbness.

Motor nerves

Motor nerves govern your muscle movements. If peripheral neuropathy affects your motor nerves, you could have symptoms like arm, hand, or leg weakness along with muscle thinning (wasting), twitching, spasms, and reduced muscle function.

Autonomic nerves

Your autonomic nerves manage crucial functions like breathing, heartbeat, and bladder control. Damage in these nerves can cause problems like a spike in blood pressure, urinary issues, digestive problems, and sexual dysfunction.

Sensory nerve damage is generally the most obvious, but all nerve damage can be serious. You can also experience neuropathic pain in your central nervous system (your brain and spinal cord), which can happen after a stroke or spinal cord injury or when you have a neurological disease like Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis.

What causes neuropathy?

Quite a few different diseases, health conditions, and circumstances can cause or contribute to peripheral neuropathy. By far, the most common is diabetes, but other causes include infection, traumatic injury, certain medications, and autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

How is neuropathy treated? 

Neuropathy treatment with an MIG provider begins by addressing the underlying cause. For example, if you have Type 2 diabetes, it involves controlling your blood sugar and improving your health through diet, lifestyle changes, and medication if necessary.

You may need medication to treat specific neuropathy symptoms, as well. Some common neuropathy medications include antiseizure drugs and tricyclic antidepressants. Lidocaine patches or creams can relieve some neuropathic pain, and, in some cases, you could need lidocaine injections for pain relief lasting up to a few months.  

In the most severe cases of neuropathy, your MIG neurology specialist may recommend a procedure or surgery to repair or deactivate affected nerves.

Contact a Midsouth Independent Group neurology specialist now for help with neuropathy.