Sunday 17 September 2017

Diabetes and Nerve Damage


Diabetes associated nerve damage is called diabetic neuropathy. Approximately 60% of the diabetic population suffer from the disorder without distinctive symptoms in certain cases and severe disability in others. Diabetes impairs the blood flow to smaller blood vessels that stimulate the nerves, thus limiting the blood supply and resulting in slow death of nerves, termed as ischemia. Diabetes is harmful for nerves in different ways and the risk stems from chronic high blood sugar levels. Uncontrolled blood sugar and hypertension tend to elevate the risk factors of neuropathy.



Diabetic nerve damage causes pain, tingling, burning and loss of sensation. Minor foot injuries fail to heal with the person unaware of the injury, which further aggravates to infection. Stomach and intestinal nerves suffer from poor sugar levels resulting in nausea, diarrhoea, loss of appetite and delay in food movement from stomach to intestine due improper muscular contraction of gastrointestinal muscles. Due to ineffective nerve functioning and lack of capillary movement of blood in penile portion, erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common problem is men.

Peripheral Neuropathy: Affecting the extremities, hands and legs have prickly sensation, sharp pain, cramps and burning sensation during a specific time of the day. Constant sensitivity of foot and legs gets worse at night; generate loss in co-ordination of legs with body and losing balance. The condition gets better if the blood sugar level is timely maintained. Chronic occurrence often changes the shape of feet and loss of reflexes, and set in foot ulcers.

Autonomic Neuropathy: Mostly affecting the digestive system, especially the stomach and intestinal muscles; autonomic neuropathy results in impaired muscular movement of the gastrointestinal tract. A person feels bloated, develops heartburn and vomit frequently due to slow movement of food into the intestine. Due to these problems, there is loss of appetite and even quite small portions make the person feel stuffed. Other risk factors are increased heart rate, and bouts of blackout, dizziness, sweating, hypoglycaemic, weakness and headaches.
Men and women with diabetic autonomic neuropathy might experience loss in libido due to painful intercourse, dryness in the sexual organs. Men develop impotency due to insufficient penile erection. The urinary tract nerves are also impaired that result in difficulty to empty the bladder, incontinence, frequent urge to urinate and bloated sensation.

Proximal Neuropathy: The pain in this type of neuropathy is confined to hips, thighs and butt region that lead to weakness of legs too.

Focal Neuropathy: Acute nerve damage and poor blood circulation of specific body part like suddenly affects a specific body part like head, torso, abdomen, pelvis, arms or leg. Focal neuropathy is extremely risky causing blurred vision, pain in eyes, paralysed face on one side, and excruciating chest or stomach pain raising false alarm of heart attack or appendicitis.
Besides the above conditions, diabetics get nerve compressions in which a body part feels tingling, painful and weak, typically known as entrapment syndrome, e.g. Carpal tunnel syndrome is compression of hand.

Treatment

Diabetic neuropathy is diagnosed through symptomatic analysis and thorough physical examination. Treatment begins with firstly controlling the blood sugar levels through proper diet and insulin dosage, and lifestyle changes. Anti-inflammatory drugs and analgesics are prescribed to relieve the symptoms. Patients with gastrointestinal problems are given antacids and drugs to speed up digestion process. Urinary tract related neurological problems are treated through antibiotics. Sexual dysfunction is temporarily cured via certain drugs and lubricants. Patients with foot problems are advised on special care of feet and tend to their injuries, crack and cuts immediately to evade foot ulcers and infections.


At Koya Diabetes Clinic in Hyderabad Artificial Pancreas Therapy (APT) is used to target the core problem of diabetes, abnormal carbohydrate metabolism. APT is a US-FDA approved method in which a device is used to infuse insulin intravenously and mimic the healthy pancreas function of releasing insulin in pulse; thereby normalize the root cause. Diabetic complications such as eye, foot  complications,  has been successfully treated through APT. APT is the most promising treatment to control blood sugar and in long term normalize the symptoms of diabetes by reversing it and heal the tissues. APT has shown remarkable outcome in cases of nerve damage and heal acute foot ulcers. In most cases it has shown remarkable changes in the condition in just 2 weeks thereby making it the most viable therapy available in Hyderabad, India.

Diabetes and Nerve Damage

Diabetes associated nerve damage is called diabetic neuropathy . Approximately 60% of the diabetic population suffer from the disorder...