Once you have peripheral neuropathy, there’s one big question: How will neuropathy change your life?
Pain And Numbness — The first sign of neuropathy is often pain and numbness in your extremities. It can feel like pins and needles, like they’re burning or itching, or like you’re always wearing gloves or socks so you can’t feel anything on the surface of your skin.
These symptoms may come and go to start. They can get better or worse when you change environments and routines. Neuropathy makes you hypersensitive to changes in pressure, friction, and temperature.
Temperature, for example, can play a major role in pain. If you go outside during the cold, blood vessels in your hands and feet constrict to preserve warmth around your vital organs. Constricted blood vessels mean the nerves aren’t getting adequate blood flow. Normal discomfort caused by having cold hands is amplified by neuropathy.
Dealing with the discomfort can be difficult. The better option is to try to prevent or minimize the temperature change altogether.
- Wear insulated and impermeable gloves and boots to protect your hands and feet from extreme cold.
- Use a thermostat to keep your home at a constant, comfortable temperature.
- Swim in indoor pools in the summer so you don’t transition from hot ambient temperatures to drastically colder water.
- Run errands and exercise in the morning on hot days and during the afternoon on cold days.
Sleep — Neuropathy can hurt normal sleep patterns. Some days, your feet might be too sensitive to bear the weight of a bedsheet, and you can’t find foot pain neuropathy relief. Rolling over may prove painful. Or you can have difficulty falling or staying asleep.
Lack of sleep can actually worsen symptoms. Fortunately, there are things you can do to improve your chances for a good night’s sleep and neuropathy pain relief.
- Keep your bedroom between 68 and 75°F.
- Establish nightly routines so your body knows when to shut down for the night.
- Gentle stretches and massage can ease tension in muscles and nerves in the affected areas.
- Use blackout curtains because ambient light from street lamps can keep you from sleeping deeply and can even trick your body into thinking the sun is coming up.
- Blackout curtains are particularly important for people who work odd shifts and must sleep during the day.
- Keep all electronics out of your bedroom.
- Reading or playing a game can be tempting if you wake up, but you can spend much more time playing the game than you intend, losing precious hours of sleep.
- Don’t stare at the dark ceiling for hours, which can feel increasingly frustrating, adding to your sleeplessness. Get up, get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, go through your bedtime ritual again, and then lie down.
- You may find that white noise, like ocean waves or a fan, helps you block out other sounds that may wake you, like a neighbor’s dog barking at 2 AM.
Balance — In addition to pain and sleepless nights, you may wobble or feel unsteady and trip more frequently than before. Your brain responds to hundreds of signals from your feet and legs to keep you upright. Your brain makes constant mini-corrections in response to changes in the terrain. If your nerves can’t send those signals, your brain must rely on visual and auditory cues to help you stay balanced.
If your nerve signals are delayed, you can experience slow reaction times. This can lead to more falls.
Independence — Peripheral neuropathy can cause you to rely on others for your basic needs. Neuropathy can cause muscle weakness, making lifting and gripping things hard. If you can’t feel your feet, you can’t feel your car’s gas and brake pedals. Buttoning a shirt, fixing a meal, opening a jar, doing home repairs, doing housework, typing, texting, and even driving to your pain clinic in Sioux Falls get harder to do on your own.
Traditional pain treatment uses drugs to mask pain and interrupt electrical signals to the brain. Antidepressants and anti-seizure medications can help a patient find more comfort, but they don’t address the root causes of the pain and ongoing damage to the nerves. The longer the damage continues, the more likely it will be for the condition to become permanent.
We at Axiom Chiropractic & Neuropathy are dedicated to discovering and treating the root cause of your pain so that we can provide effective, lasting neuropathy pain relief, not just pain management.
Our Approach
A sickly plant can recover when given the optimal conditions for plant health, namely:
- Soil with the right PH balance and nutrients
- Adequate sunshine as well as shade for the more delicate plants
- Fresh air
- Temperatures that encourage growth
- The right amount of water to carry nutrients into the roots without rotting the roots
Likewise, damaged but not yet dead nerves can heal, given the right environment. Chronic pain treatment in Sioux Falls starts with an in-depth medical history and examination to verify the cause(s) of nerve damage.
Step one is stopping further damage. If you have diabetes, we need to get your blood sugar under control. If your nerve damage stems from excessive drinking, abstaining from alcohol in the future is the only way to recover.
Step two is to create an internal environment conducive to healing. Your body will do the rest, repairing what nerves are repairable and preventing further damage. Your nerves need four things to thrive:
- Free range of motion. Pinched or trapped nerves can be released through certain chiropractic therapies, massage, and exercises.
- Free blood flow. By avoiding vasoconstrictors and substances like excess sugar or alcohol that damage veins and arteries, blood vessels can repair themselves and return to supplying nerves with nutrients. We can help improve blood flow with exercises and stimulation.
- Abundant oxygen.
- The right nutrients. Finding nutritional deficiencies helps your treatment team find out what recommendations they can give to best help you.
As part of step 3, we may be able to provide you with therapies you can do at home, saving you from frequent trips to our office. By sticking to the assigned program, you, too, can experience neuropathy pain relief.
DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE
The information, including but not limited to, texts, graphics, images, and other material contained in this article are for informational purposes only. None of the material mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new care regimen. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this article.
