What causes diabetes-related neuropathy? Permanently high blood sugar levels can damage the small blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients to nerves. Permanently high blood sugar levels can damage the small blood vessels that provide oxygen and nutrients to nerves. Without enough oxygen and nutrients, nerve cells can die and affect nerve function. About 30 percent of patients with frank diabetes for more than a decade have some form of neuropathy.
It usually occurs as numbness, itching, or tingling in the legs, but it can also be pain. It can even present as digestive problems, such as difficulty digesting food or diarrhea due to problems with the nerves in the intestines. Most diabetic neuropathies are caused by peripheral artery disease, in which small blood vessels are blocked or partially obstructed and cannot carry oxygenated blood to areas of the body. These areas have pain or other difficulties due to the lack of oxygen.
It's probably because high blood sugar levels damage the tiny blood vessels that supply nerves. Peripheral neuropathy is more likely the longer you have diabetes. When you have diabetes, nerve damage called diabetic neuropathy can be caused by high blood sugar. There are four main types of diabetic neuropathy.
It's possible that you only have one type. Or you may have symptoms of more than one type. Most types of diabetic neuropathy develop over time. Therefore, you may not notice symptoms until a large amount of nerve damage has occurred.
In people with diabetes, decreased blood flow and high levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood can damage nerves in the body. This condition is more likely when your blood sugar level isn't well controlled over time. Your healthcare provider and other diabetes specialists, such as a certified diabetes care and education specialist (CDCES), will work with you to achieve realistic blood sugar goals. The Euro‐Diab group reported that blood glucose control, duration of diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and smoking were important risk factors for the development of neuropathy in patients with type 1 diabetes.
My glucose levels usually range between 120 and 135 if I take a blood test without fasting, even though I don't have a diagnosis of diabetes. Vascular supply to peripheral nerves is scarce and blood flow is likely to be compromised and lack self-regulation. Despite efforts to make an early diagnosis and stop the progression of diabetic neuropathy, there is currently no effective treatment available worldwide, other than strict blood glucose control. Retinopathy, neuropathy, and kidney disease are rarer in prediabetics, but they can occur, especially in people who have prediabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure). The arachidonic acid pathway is activated to increase cyclooxygenase (COX) -2 concentrations in the peripheral nerves of diabetic rats with STZ, where the inhibition of COX-2 corrects nervous blood flow and the delay of NCV135. A thorough evaluation that includes a review of blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose tests combined with more advanced tests helps the doctor rule out other causes and identify the main problem.
Tighter blood sugar control, along with other chronic problems such as obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and nutritional deficiencies, can improve symptoms and prevent neuropathy from worsening. Classically, diabetes control and complication trials (DCCT) confirmed the beneficial effects of meticulous blood glucose control on the incidence of chronic complications in 1441 patients with type 1 diabetes. No significant change in PKC activity was found in homogenized complete peripheral nerve tissues of diabetic rats with STZ, although the specific PKC‐beta inhibitor improved NCV delay and nervous blood flow 121. Everyone is different, so it's almost impossible to predict how high blood sugar levels need to be and for how long to cause neuropathy. It controls blood pressure, heart rate and sweat glands, eyes, bladder, digestive system, and sexual organs. If blood sugar is better controlled, symptoms of diabetes-related neuropathy, such as numbness and other abnormal sensations, may disappear within a year.
I like to think of blood glucose values as a spectrum of numbers with no clear boundary between non-diabetics. and diabetics.
