Do you have have unexplainable pain or numbness in your feet? Maybe you have decreased sensation in your feet. Have you not noticed when you step on something and find it later?
You may have something called peripheral neuropathy. This blog post is designed to educate you a little bit about what it is and what you can do about it!
What Is Peripheral Neuropathy?
Peripheral neuropathy is what happens when the signals from your nerves get messed up. This can be due to many reasons, which you will learn about later on. Neuropathy can present in a few different ways. It can be painful, it can make your feel numb, it may be tingling.
Your nerves carry signals from your spinal cord to your feet or from your feet to your spinal cord. These are called the peripheral nerves. The spinal cord carries the signals to and from your brain.
There are three ways that the signals of your peripheral nerves can be affected.
Loss of signal
Signals when there shouldn't be any
Distorted signals
Symptoms of neuropathy can be extremely mild or be disabling. If your symptoms are minor, you may elect not to do anything. This is okay, but be aware if your symptoms start to get worse. If you have symptoms that affect everything you do you will want to address this immediately. The good news is that neuropathy is not life threatening.
Peripheral Neuropathy effects all types of your nerves. The 3 types of nerves that can be affected are: sensory (deals with sensation/touch), motor (deals with the firing of muscle fibers), and autonomic (regulates your bodies thermoregulation)
What Causes Peripheral Neuropathy?
There are a few things that can cause you to have a peripheral neuropathy. I will provide a list of risk factors here:
Injury- trauma to your feet can cause neuropathy. This can come from being in a car accident, playing sports, having surgery, broken bones, arthritis, or prolonged pressure on your nerve(s).
Vascular Issues - conditions that result in narrowing of your blood vessels can create a neuropathy. You may be at risk if you smoke, have high cholesterol, or other signs of narrowing of your arteries. This can sometimes be reversed with lifestyle changes.
Diabetes - diabetic neuropathy is common, but can be decreased with lifestyle changes. 70% of people with diabetes will have peripheral neuropathy.
Auto-immune disease - with auto-immune diseases, something gets crossed in your body's response and it can attack healthy tissue. This includes your nerves.
Infections - although this is a low risk, some infections can cause issues with your peripheral nerves
Nutritional imbalances - too much vitamin B6 or too little vitamin B12 can cause neuropathies to occur. If you feel this is the cause you can try to increase your B12 or decrease your B6. This is best done under the supervision of a nutritionist or medical doctor.
Hormonal imbalances - imbalances in hormones can lead to swelling of tissues that can press on your nerves
Some of these issues will require treatment from your medical provider. Some can be treated by lifestyle change, and still some can be treated with physical therapy. Depending on what may be causing your peripheral neuropathy will depend on what the best course of action for you would be.
Treating Peripheral Neuropathy
To treat peripheral neuropathy, you may need some bloodwork done to figure out your exact cause. Once that is known, you can move forward with your treatment.
For many of you exercise, the right kind, will be helpful in both alleviating symptoms and/or preventing worsening of symptoms.
Working on your strength and balance will help you to avoid further injury or damage from your sensation or motor deficits.
If you, or anyone you know, is suffering from what might be a peripheral neuropathy in your foot/feet, please reach out to talk.
425-202-5687
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