Early treatment can help prevent more problems in the future. To prevent diabetic neuropathy, it's important to control diabetes by controlling blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. Focal neuropathies are conditions in which a single nerve is usually damaged, most often in the hand, head, torso and leg. And in extreme cases, surgery can be used to destroy nerves or repair injuries that cause pain and neuropathic symptoms.
Managing diabetes is an important part of preventing health problems such as diabetic neuropathy. Smoking, high blood pressure, and being overweight also make people with diabetes more likely to suffer nerve damage. In addition, if you already have diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage), these measures can prevent or delay further damage and may reduce symptoms. Over time, high levels of blood glucose, also called blood sugar, and high levels of fats, such as triglycerides, in the blood due to diabetes can harm nerves.
While different types of diabetic neuropathy can affect people who have diabetes, research suggests that up to half of people with diabetes have peripheral neuropathy. If you have diabetic neuropathy, you must control your diabetes, which means controlling your blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and weight to prevent nerve damage from worsening. Proper pain management can significantly improve the lives of people with diabetes and painful neuropathy. People who have complications due to diabetes in other parts of the body (such as the kidneys, heart, or eyes) are also more likely to have or develop neuropathy, since the same factors that cause these problems also contribute to neuropathy.
The longer a person has diabetes and the worse their control, the more likely they are to develop diabetic neuropathy. Foot care is very important for everyone with diabetes, and it's even more important if you have peripheral neuropathy. Most people with diabetic neuropathy don't know they have nerve damage until their doctor detects it in a routine exam. If you have diabetes, the chances of having nerve damage from diabetes increase as you age and the longer you have diabetes.
