Is Neuropathy Disabling?

Neuropathy is a disorder where your nerves do not receive enough oxygen and as a result the nerves go to sleep. If not treated, the affects of neuropathy can be disabling. Treatment helps to limit the disabling affects of neuropathy.

Risk Factors

• Diabetics and the elderly are the most vulnerable to neuropathy. However, neuropathy can still develop in other individuals.

Symptoms

• Neuropathy is commonly associated with pain, usually a numbing sensation or shooting pain. Depending on the location of the effected nerves, affects of neuropathy may include loss of balance and coordination.

Disabling Characteristics of Neuropathy

• The loss of balance and coordination linked to some cases of neuropathy can make walking difficult. If not treated, neuropathy can lead to conditions like sexual dysfunction and bladder dysfunction. These dysfunctions can disable a person from enjoying a fulfilling life.

Neuropathy Prognosis

• The longer your nerves are asleep the more disabling neuropathy is. This is because the sleeping nerves drift farther apart from other nerves in the body, making signals from the brain to the body harder to get across.

Treatment

• For years neuropathy was treated with pain medication as a way to mask the pain of the disorder. Advances in the medical field have led to the use of electric therapy to treat neuropathy. Electric therapy is effective in waking the nerves and teaching the nerves to work again, which can lead to the reversing of disabling affects of neuropathy.