Is It Possible to Reverse Diabetic Neuropathy?

To say that diabetes casts a wide net is a massive understatement. This chronic disease, which is diagnosed in 1.2 million Americans each year totaling more than 38.4 million people with diabetes, can lead to side effects that impact your body from head to toe. From losing your vision to developing diabetic foot ulcers in your feet, few areas of the body are immune from diabetes complications.

Since November is National Diabetes Month, the team here at Apex Pain Specialists, led by Dr. Maziar Massrour and Dr. Naveen Reddy, wants to train our sights on diabetic neuropathy. 

Of all the potential side effects of diabetes, peripheral neuropathy is among the most common —  it develops in about half of people with the chronic disease. So, it’s well worth educating yourself about nerve damage, starting with whether it’s reversible.

The link between diabetes and peripheral neuropathy

At the heart of diabetes are uncontrolled glucose levels in your bloodstream, which occur due to lack of insulin and/or insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone that’s produced in your pancreas and its main job is to pick up sugar in your blood and deliver it to cells, which use the sugar as energy.

With diabetes, your pancreas can’t keep up with the amount of glucose in your blood and, making matters more complicated, your cells become resistant to the insulin that your pancreas does produce.

So, you’re left with too-high levels of sugar in your blood that can damage your peripheral nerves, especially those located down in your lower limbs (diabetic neuropathy can also affect your upper limbs, though not as frequently).

There are many reasons why we’re concerned about peripheral neuropathy beyond the fact that it can cause you pain — it can also lead to slow-healing wounds that are vulnerable to limb-threatening infections.

Is turning back the clock on nerve damage possible?

Given just how serious peripheral neuropathy can be for people with diabetes, you want to know whether you can reverse the condition should it develop. The short answer is no. 

Unfortunately, the majority of nerves that malfunction due to diabetes will not get better. Some nerves may regrow with enough time and the right circumstances, but most will remain permanently damaged.

This is why we place the emphasis on management because peripheral neuropathy can be slowed and even halted. This is critical because irreversible neuropathy leads to more irreversible conditions, like amputation due to infection in your lower limbs.

So, while we can’t turn back the clock on existing damage, we can ensure a brighter future if we work quickly to manage your neuropathy.

How we address diabetes-related neuropathy

As pain management specialists, our role in diabetes-related nerve damage is to relieve the symptoms that are associated with peripheral neuropathy, such as:

• Shooting pain in your lower limbs
• Shock-like pain
• Numbness and tingling
• Muscle weakness
• Unusual sensations
• Hypersensitivity

We offer a wide range of pain management tools to address nerve pain and we work with you until we find one that makes you more comfortable.

In the meantime, you should be working with your diabetes team to make sure your glucose levels are under control so that we can contain the neuropathy.

Reversing nerve damage is around the corner

We do want to point out that science is always being conducted, especially in the area of neuropathy. There has been some success with vitamin B for promoting nerve health, as well as regenerative medicine to promote nerve regrowth. We stay on top of all the latest findings and offer treatments that have proven to be successful.

To figure out which treatments and management practices are best for your peripheral neuropathy, we invite you to call our office in Chandler, Arizona, at 480-820-7246 or book an appointment online today.