Treatment for diabetic neuropathy: nerve damage in legs

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treatment for diabetic neuropathy

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Peripheral neuropathy is a painful, frustrating sometimes disabling condition, that affects millions of people across the world. If you’re one of those people, I promise you, you need to read this article until the very end to find out more about treatment for diabetic neuropathy. It’s going to help you if there is a chance to either:

  • slow down the progression of your neuropathy
  • to actually stop the progression
  • to reverse the progression
  • even to completely reverse your neuropathy

Are you looking for treament for diabetic neuropathy.

Can neuropathy from diabetes be reversed?

The answer is contained in this article. This article is going to help you with your peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral neuropathy is so pervasive I guarantee several of your friends and family there’s already suffer from it so please consider sharing this article on your social media on your Twitter and your Instagram your Facebook because reading this article might help someone understand the root cause of peripheral neuropathy.

With that knowledge they can then begin to slow down the progression to reverse it or even to cure. These article is based on information from neuropathy treatment centers.

What will not cure peripheral neuropathy

Blood glucose meter. Diabetes. Diagnosis

First lets get out of the way things that are definitely not going to help. Reason being people spend money every day on products that are promoted to help peripheral neuropathy and I’m gonna give you the short list of stuff. You can save your money, you don’t need to buy them ever.

They don’t even address the root cause of peripheral neuropathy. They’re not gonna fix anything that you rub on externally, so if you have peripheral neuropathy in your feet, toes, legs and someone selling you a cream, a salve, a lotion or a balm that you rub on your skin and this somehow is supposed to help the neuropathy in feet symptoms

That´s foolishness. It is a waste of money that’s never going to help. Treament for diabetic neuropathy should be effective and you should research about it.

I’ve actually seen lauded doctors and experts out there saying you should decrease your salt intake or you should decrease your saturated fat intake. Not only is there no research to back this up but it goes against the actual neurological physiology in the human body.

Your nerves need salt and they are made of fat. Therefore, these 2 recommendations are foolishness.

Some people even say taking this certain multivitamin complex is going to cure your neuropathy, but this never works. It might help a tiny bit if you have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, but if you don’t have one of those deficiencies that’s not gonna help at all. 

You will see nerve support formulas out there that come in capsules and pills and maybe even shakes and powders. This is another complete another waste of money. You don’t need any of these things that I talked about above. They are not going to help your peripheral neuropathy at all.

What helps the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy?

There are a few prescription medication‘s that will help the symptoms. It will help the burning, the itching, the aching and the numbness for instance. However, they in no way address the root cause and each one of these has a long list, not of possible side effects but probable side effects. 

Side effects of neuropathy

You’re going to have side effects if you take one of these medications. They include Lyrica, Neurontin, Amitriptyline and Tegretol.

Most of these are medication‘s for either seizure disorders, depression or mood disorders. They will knock the edge off of your symptoms but in no way will they cure, reverse or slow down the progression of your neuropathy.

Least common causes of peripheral neuropathy

Lets go through the list of what causes peripheral neuropathy. I am going to start first with the the the least likely. These are the 1/100 things that might be causing some of your neuropathy or in the very rear individual  that might be causing the majority of the neuropathy. These however, are in the rearest of causes. 

I’m not saying all these things are super rare I’m just saying they’re probably not what’s causing your peripheral neuropathy. They include:

  • alcoholism – If you drink alcohol for too many years.
  • Amyloidosis 
  • Chemotherapy
  • If you have toxic levels of heavy metals
  • Porphyria’s
  • B12 deficiency absolutely can cause a peripheral neuropathy 
  • Idiopathic polyneuropathy – idiopathic means we don’t know what is causing it but at least they can put a diagnosis on it. 
  • Paraneoplastic syndromes – so if you have cancer in specific location in your body that can lead to some peripheral neuropathy
  • Small vessel vasculitis
  • Lyme disease

Most common causes of peripheral neuropathy. How to treat nerve pain in arm?

Let’s talk about the most common causes. These are the things you want to focus on, because probably 90% of peripheral neuropathy in the world is caused by one of these things.

Maybe you are familiar to carpal tunnel syndrome and it’s impact on people with diabetes. I really boil down to 2 different things which I’ll get into right after I name this list. 

Diabetes causes peripheral neuropathy

Diabetes is absolutely a huge cause of neuropathy. As well as hyperglycemia and prediabetes. Years before you develop type-2 diabetes when you’re in the very earliest stages of prediabetes, you can be developing neuropathy.

In fact, that’s how many people are diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. They go to the doctor and say “doctor, my feet are burning and I don’t know why so”. That can absolutely cause it.

Chronic hyperinsulinemia 

Chronic hyperinsulinemia which is a part of prediabetes and also a part of the next one which is metabolic syndrome. Chronic inappropriate inflammation caused by either your diet or something entering in your system that leads to chronic  inappropriate inflammation.

That inflammation can attack your small nerve endings in your feet, toes, legs, hands, arms and other parts of your body.

Autoimmune conditions in so if your immune system is strong but confused about where the boundary between you and not you begins then your immune system can actually start to attack your nerve endings.

The hyperglycemia that comes from Type-1 diabetes Type-2 diabetes, prediabetes and hyperinsulinemia that comes years before even prediabetes starts.

Hyperglycemia is the problem because this chronically high blood sugar or multiple spikes of high blood sugar everytime you eat an inappropriate meal for you. Actually glycans, the proteins on the myelin sheath of the little nerves out in your periphery and the longer a nerve is the more likely it is to be affected. 

When you glycate your Mylan sheath, then your immune system comes along your macrophages and they start to say, right, there shouldn’t be no glycated protein right here and so they start to phagocytise and actually destroy your nerve endings.

You’ve then got the perfect storm of hyperglycemia leading to glycation, then your immune system which is confused because there’s a weird glycation approaching that shouldn’t be there. 

Your immune system actually starts to attack that. Again, with chronic inappropriate inflammation that’s the second big arm of this.

You actually will start to have inflammation around the arteries because  your immune system is confused by all this inflammation everywhere, all the time every day so it starts to attack parts of you that it shouldn’t. For some people this manifest as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and some people this manifest as lupus or Sjogren’s or all the other autoimmune conditions, type-1 diabetes with beta cells in the pancreas.

However in some people, your immune system starts to attack your small nerves, out on the periphery of your body, in your legs or in your arm which destroys the cell. 

Phantom limb pain

You may have heard of human phantom limb pain in the past. Assuming it’s an arm or leg cut off in the trauma or cut off because they have severe uncontrolled diabetes. They can actually have phantom pain out in that foot that is no longer there. 

Also you may have heard about vicks vaporub warning and i am hear to clarify all these things for you. What is it ok to consume and why is that.

We know from this example that nerve pain can also be from the absence of a signal. This is because your nerves from your smallest to your biggest toe, your legs they’re always communicating back-and-forth with your brain.

Basically so if the brain is not getting the ok signal from your toe because either hyperglycemia or chronic inappropriate inflammation in the immune response, has destroyed that nerve at some point your body and your body manifest that as pain.

Even though there’s nothing technically wrong with the amputated foot and it can’t be giving you pain. Even though it no longer exists, you’re still getting your pain signals and all this works together to lead to peripheral neuropathy.

What tests do you need?

Lets talk about the testing that you need. 90% of the testing your needs are going to be right up top in this list and then I want to talk about the less common and the more esoteric causes:

  • hemoglobin A1c
  • C peptide

You need both of these checked immediately to see what your glycemic situation is. To see what your prediabetes, your hyperglycemia, your type-2 diabetes.

Where are you at?

Then you can start to reverse that. 

  • You need a complete metabolic panel
  • You need a urinalysis
  • You need a CBC with differential
  • You need a sed rate
  • CRP
  • You need a vitamin B 12 level check because that’s one of the things that can lead to either proof from neuropathy or worsening of your peripheral neuropathy caused by some other costs
  • You need a complete Thyroid panel
  • You also need a GGT
  • Hepatitis panel as well. Sometimes people with chronic hepatitis that´s never been diagnosed, the way they’re diagnosed as they go to the doctor complaining of burning in their feet and toes and legs and that´s how the hepatitis is discovered.
  • You need a VDRL which is a test for syphilis which is a great imitator. It can present with virtually any symptom whatsoever.Peripheral neuropathy being one of does.
  • You need a  heavy metal testing done, and there are usually 2 panels of a heavy metal testing so ask your health care provider for both so that you catch any toxicities you may have.

Testing outside of the lab

Outside of the lab you can succumb. to:

  • Electro diagnostic studies
  • Nerve biopsies
  • Skin biopsies 

They can look at the small nerve fibers in those biopsies.

You probably won’t make it all the way down the list you’ll probably find the reason for your peripheral neuropathy up very high on this list. However, if your doctor just can’t find the cause then you may keep going down this list until so.

How can you actually cure peripheral neuropathy?

Doctor sits with folded arms. Diabetes test

A lot of people are asking “how do you reverse neuropathy?”. Is it really possible to reverse neuropathy? If yes, how and what are the solutions?

After all that , what does actually work? what does actually help peripheral neuropathy. There are multiple studies that show links to all the research that I used in the creation of this article.

Here are the things that absolutely do help the most. I’m gonna start with the least likely to help and then I’m going talk about what helps 80-90% of people with peripheral neuropathy..

Diet and supplements - treatment for diabetic neuropathy

  • Making sure that either in your diet or in a supplement you’re getting an excellent source of all the B vitamins is absolutely vital. You’ve got to have that for proper nerve function
  • Making sure that you’re getting enough magnesium and potassium either in your diet, supplement or both is again vital
  • Making sure you’re getting enough vitamin D and if you’re going to take a vitamin D supplement you want to use vitamin D3 not vitamin D 2
  • Making sure you’re getting plenty of omega-3 fatty acids preferably in your diet but if you must take an omega-3 fatty acid capsule that’s your choice.

I’d much rather you eat real food and get your omega-3‘s and your vitamin D and your potassium and magnesium rather than I would you just take a supplement and ignore your diet.

The 2 things that are absolutely going to slow down, reverse or completely cure peripheral neuropathy

This of course applies to the majority of people.There will always be exceptions if you have one of the weird causes mentioned earlier. For 80 or 90% of the people:

  • You’re having hyperglycemia
  • Having chronic inappropriate inflammation
  • Having a confused immune system

Those are the three major causes of at least the majority of your peripheral neuropathy pain. You absolutely need to slowly transform your diet from whatever you’re eating now, to a very low carbohydrate diet. You need to get all the sugar, both added and natural out of your diet because that spikes blood sugar.

You need to get all the grains out of your diet,wheat rice, corn and all the rest of the grains because they break down immediately into sugar which spikes your blood sugar.

If you’re eating low-carb that’s fine with me, if you’re eating a keto diet that’s gonna work too, if you’re eating a carnivore diet that’s gonna work too. Diet is really the most important thing you can change. This is a good way for treament for diabetic neuropathy.

Fasting

Nowadays you can hear a lot of people saying ” fasting cured my neuropathy”. So let’s find out if it is really possible something like that.

If you have moderate to severe peripheral neuropathy symptoms, you absolutely as quick as you can you need to ramp up your daily fasting from just the 8 hours asleep you need to quickly ramp that up to a 14 – 20 hour day fast. 

When you get up to 14 hours a day and you do that for a while you’re gonna start to notice an improvement. The higher up you’re able to ramp in 16 – 20 hours, you’re going to notice improvement quicker.

Keep in mind nerves grow very slowly nerves. Nerves regrow very slowly, so if hyperglycaemia has caused glycation and the cause your phagocytes to come in and destroy a tiny nerve ending in your toe or your foot. Basically when you’re having peripheral neuropathy pain there, going low carb, keto, carnivores is not going to fix that overnight.

It’s gonna take weeks or months for that nerve to regrow and find its other end that it lost because it was interrupted. So don’t expect results overnight, that is not how the human body works when it comes to nerve physiology. 

Nerves regrow very slowly and may take several months but if you suffer from severe peripheral neuropathy, I don’t have to tell you that if anything makes it better it’s worth waiting a while to get that improvement.

I’ve actually had contact with patients in the past who have committed suicide because their peripheral neuropathy was so severe and painful. 

Glucometer and freshly sandwiches with paste of avocado, diabetes, healthy food and nutrition

Conclusion

There are a lot to say about this condition and it’s clearly that we have a long road until we will truly understand the causes and the remedies for diabetes.

There is no end for medicine evolution and by the time we are speaking there are big steps in diabetes research and treatment.It is true that it will take more than that to combat the condition.

It is very important to be careful for everything and this includes people with diabetes when it comes to winning this fight. So is it normal that you want to try and beat diabetes with any solution, but before you will try any  treatment of diabetic neuropathy, it is really indicated that you will talk this with your doctor.

Hope this article helped you and answered some of your questions. Stay safe!

FAQ - treatment for diabetic neuropathy

Customary activity, like strolling three times each week, can lessen neuropathy torment, further develop muscle strength and assist with controlling glucose levels. Delicate schedules, for example, yoga and jujitsu could likewise help. Stop smoking

Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha, assigned as Withania somnifera in natural science, is a rejuvenative spice that holds powerful properties to recuperate a large group of wellbeing misfortunes, including diabetic neuropathy.

Berries, peaches, cherries, red grapes, oranges and watermelon, among others, are stacked with cancer prevention agents, which help to diminish irritation and lessen nerve harm. Furthermore, grapes, blueberries and cranberries have been viewed as loaded with a strong mitigating compound called resveratrol.

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