Nerve Damage of Diabetes

Diabetic neuropathy is a nerve disorder caused by diabetes. Get to know symptoms and prevention methods of diabetic neuropathy.

You suffer from diabetes or you have a friend or relative with diabetes? You think people with diabetes are doomed? You don’t know what you can do and what you can’t? Don’t miss the opportunity to find the answers to all your questions. Offered information will inform you about all aspects of diabetic problem.

Diabetic Neuropathy
Diabetic neuropathy is a nerve disorder caused by diabetes. This disorder has such symptoms as numbness and sometimes pain in the hands, feet, or legs. Nerve damage caused by diabetes can also results in problems with internal organs such as the digestive tract, heart, and sexual organs. In its turn, it can cause indigestion, diarrhea or constipation, dizziness, bladder infections, and impotence. Sometimes, neuropathy can flare up suddenly and cause weakness and weight loss. Depression may follow. While some treatments are available, a great deal of research is still needed to realize how diabetes affects the nerves and to find more effective treatments for this complication.

Prevention of Diabetic Neuropathy
A 10-year clinical study that involved 1,441 volunteers with insulin-dependent diabetes (IDDM) was recently completed by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. This study proved that maintaining blood sugar levels as close to the normal range as possible slows the onset and progression of nerve disease caused by diabetes.

The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) studied two groups of people: the first is those who followed a standard diabetes management routine and the second is those who religiously managed their diabetes. People in the intensive management group took frequent injections of insulin daily or used an insulin pump and monitored their blood glucose at least four times per day to try to lower their blood glucose levels to the normal range.

5 years later, tests of neurological function displayed that the risk of nerve damage was decreased by 60% in the intensively managed group. People in the standard treatment group, whose average blood glucose levels were higher, had increased chances for neuropathy. Despite the DCCT included only patients with IDDM, explorers think that people with noninsulin-dependent diabetes would also benefit from maintaining lower levels of blood glucose.

Nerve problems can develop in people with diabetes at any time. Significant clinical neuropathy can develop during the first 10 years after diagnosis of diabetes and the risk of developing neuropathy increases the longer a person has diabetes.