Nerve pain from diabetic neuropathy itself is not dangerous. However, it can cause discomfort from pain signals that can be mild or intense and can also come and go depending on external and internal environmental factors.
While this discomfort alone may not be dangerous, diabetic neuropathy can lead to a number of unpleasant side effects that could pose risks. These risks include:
Masking: As nerves send corrupted signals, or signals are interrupted due to permanent nerve damage, the nerves may miss cues that you’ve been injured. You could step on a piece of glass and never feel it.
Infection: Another side effect of diabetes is restricted blood flow to the extremities. That means the healing process is slow. You could develop infections that lead to blood poisoning, gangrene, amputation, and death. Those with peripheral neuropathy need to exercise constant vigilance and go to the hospital when wounds aren’t healing well or quickly enough. (Check your feet daily to be safe.)
Balance Problems: Nerves help the body move. They tell your brain that your foot is on the floor or lifted. They signal that there are obstacles in your path. People with neuropathy often experience poor balance and poor reaction times when they trip, leading to nasty falls and injury. You may need a cane or walker to move around and avoid injury.
Sleep Deprivation: A common complaint among patients with diabetic neuropathy is that the nerve pain in their feet is so severe that even the weight of a bedsheet is too painful. As a result, their sleep suffers. Repeated nights without sleep can cause difficulties driving and working. It also makes you irritable and less able to cope with life’s challenges. Unfortunately, lack of sleep worsens nerve pain, which becomes a cyclical problem.
Inability to Live Independently: Advanced neuropathy patients can find routine daily tasks difficult. Little things like buttoning their shirts, gripping objects, feeling their foot on the gas and brake pedal, and more can become too difficult to do independently. They may find themselves unable to live without assistance.
What Causes Diabetic Nerve Damage?
With diabetic neuropathy, nerve damage develops when the patient can’t control their blood sugar levels. Like all organic tissue in your body, nerves need a constant supply of nutrients and oxygen to survive.
Sugar in the form of glucose is necessary for many organs. It isn’t good for blood vessels, oxidizing them similar to the way that salt corrodes metal. Your body creates antioxidants to combat this problem, but elevated glucose levels damage blood vessels faster than the antioxidants can repair them.
Insulin is a delivery system that allows glucose into the cell walls to be used as energy. If you don’t produce enough insulin, or have high levels of insulin for a long time, your body could grow resistant to it. As a result, glucose can’t enter the cell walls and circulate in the blood. Over time, veins and arteries will become damaged.
You’ll first experience nerve damage in your feet and hands because the capillaries are small, so they are more easily damaged. The tiny vessels quit feeding the nerves and surrounding tissues over time. The tissues get weaker and more damaged until they die without diabetic nerve pain treatment. Left untreated, the tissue dies (known as becoming necrotic) and must be amputated to prevent infection.
