"Peripheral neuropathy typically affects your arms, hands, feet, and legs, but it could also develop anywhere outside your central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Neuropathy is pain, often with other unpleasant sensations, due to nerve disease or damage. Peripheral nerves are the ones that branch out from your spinal cord across your entire body. In addition to neuropathic pain, you might experience other sensations like burning or prickling, tingling, or hypersensitivity. Other common symptoms of peripheral neuropathy include numbness and weakness. Depending on which nerves are involved, you might also experience a loss of function. What causes peripheral neuropathy? Peripheral neuropathy can develop as a complication of conditions such as:
Shingles (causing postherpetic neuralgia)
Celiac disease
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease
Guillain-Barr syndrome
Kidney failure
Lupus and other autoimmune disorders
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)
Hormonal disorders
Alcoholism
One of the most widespread forms of this condition is diabetic peripheral neuropathy. It affects people with diabetes, causing numbness that can prevent you from realizing you have a foot injury. Infection can set in, which combined with poor circulation resulting from diabetes, can lead to diabetic ulcers developing.
Other triggers for peripheral neuropathy include nerve injuries and compression, infectious diseases, nutrient deficiencies, poisoning, and repetitive stress. To diagnose your condition, your provider at Pain Specialists of Oregon might run tests on your nerve function, such as an EMG (electromyogram) and nerve conduction velocity (NCV) studies. What treatments can help with peripheral neuropathy? The Pain Specialists of Oregon team offers a range of potential treatments that they might include in your personalized treatment plan. These treatments include:
Physical therapy
Relaxation and stress reduction
Biofeedback
Cognitive reconditioning
Anti-seizure medications
Low-dose antidepressants
Lidocaine cream
Capsaicin cream
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy
Orthopedic stem cell injections
Steroid injections
Peripheral nerve block injections
If your peripheral neuropathy symptoms aren't getting better with these treatments, Pain Specialists of Oregon also offers advanced options. One of these is radiofrequency ablation, a minimally invasive method of destroying pain nerves in certain parts of the body. Another is peripheral nerve stimulation, where your provider implants a device that interferes with the electrical signals going from the nerves to your brain. If nerve pain originates in your spine, you could have a spinal cord stimulator implant. If nothing else is working, you might benefit from having an implantable pain pump that delivers pain medications throughout the day."
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