What is Diabetic Neuropathy and how is it best treated?
Well Bill, more than 16 million people in the US today have diabetes, and at least half of them suffer from some sort of nerve dysfunction that manifests itself as a chronic and disabling pain. This pain can present itself as a burning, sharp, shooting or knifelike pain or as muscle spasms that can result in loss of feeling and loss of strength in the areas affected. This type of condition is referred to as peripheral neuralgia and is seen quite often in diabetic patients. This pain comes from an electrical and chemical instability within the nerves and can be caused by certain medical conditions or toxins and even trauma. The main characteristic of this condition is a burning pain, usually in the legs and feet. For many years doctors used antidepressants in combination with mild analgesics to treat the pain associated with diabetic neuropathy, and this had varying degrees of success. Then physicians began to use selected anti-convulsant drugs, which are normally used to treat seizures
