If you are suffering from burning muscle pain, tingling, or numbness, you might be experiencing nerve pain/neuropathy.
It is a neurological disease triggered by some traumatic event or brain injury that damages one of the central nervous system or peripheral nervous system nerves. It can be caused by infections, diseases, or head injuries. Diabetes is the most well-known cause of nerve pain. Diabetic neuropathy is chronic and progressive. It causes several symptoms of nerve pain which get worse over time. So, noticing the symptoms is important for prompt treatment. Visit the best Pain Management Clinic in Brooklyn at Doral Health & Wellness or log on to www.doralhw.org.
Causes
Nerve pain occurs when damage happens to the nerve(s) of the central nervous system or peripheral system. Several factors can cause this damage including:
- Diseases: Diabetes, multiple sclerosis, multiple myeloma, or certain types of complications can cause nerve pain. Diabetes is the most common disease that causes nerve pain. These diseases do not directly cause nerve pain, but their complications lead to this condition.
- Infections: Shingles, HIV/AIDS, and syphilis infection can cause nerve pain as these infections spread over the body and infect brain nerves.
- Injuries: Accidents or injuries to the head can lead to nerve pain. Sometimes damage to the outer brain creates so much impact on the inner brain that causes nerve pain.
- Phantom limb syndrome: Nerve pain happens in this condition where any one arm or leg is amputated. It happens when nerves misfire or send faulty signals to the brain about the removed limb and receives painful signals.
- Other causes: some other causes such as vitamin B deficiency, thyroid problems, facial nerve problems, arthritis in the spine, or carpal tunnel syndrome can cause this disease.
Other Sources of Nerve pain
Diseases like these can lead to neuropathic pain, including:
- Alcoholism.
- Diabetes.
- Facet nerve issues.
- AIDS or HIV infection.
- diseases of the central nervous system (such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke)
- syndrome of complex regional pain.
- Shingles. (Postherpetic neuralgia is the name for pain that lingers after your case of shingles has subsided.)
Additional factors include:
- Chemotherapy medications (cisplatin, paclitaxel, vincristine, etc.).
- radiation treatment
- Amputation, which might produce imagined anguish.
- compression or inflammation of the spinal nerves.
- surgery or trauma with subsequent nerve injury.
- tumor infiltration or compression of the nerve.
Types of neuropathies
- Peripheral neuropathy: When nerve damage happens to a nerve outside of the brain and spinal cord. This type of nerve belongs to the peripheral nervous system. This can affect your hands, feet, toes, legs, and fingers. You can feel pain, numbness, or tingling in the areas supplied by the damaged nerve.
- Focal neuropathy: This type of neuropathy only affects one nerve. That’s why you feel sudden pain or numbness in one specific area of the body. Bell’s palsy is a type of focal neuropathy that causes sudden weakness and paralysis on one side of the face.
- Autonomic neuropathy: This type of neuropathy affects the nerves of the involuntary nervous system. These nerves control internal functions and organs such as digestion, blood pressure, bowel and bladder function, sexual response, and respiratory functions. It creates problems in the respective function and organs and affects other nerves that control other organs.
- Proximal neuropathy: This is a rare type of neuropathy that damages the nerves that affect only one side of the body, especially the hip, buttock, and thigh. It causes severe pain and difficulty in movement and can lead to weight or muscle loss.
- Motor neuropathy: This neuropathy is a specific type of peripheral neuropathy that affects the nerves that control voluntary muscle movement. It causes cramps, weakness, and twitches in your muscles.
- Sensory neuropathy: As the name implies, this neuropathy happens when damage happens to nerves that control your sense organs. It is a type of peripheral neuropathy. These nerves transfer sensory information to the central nervous system. Damaged nerves can activate pain receptors or deactivate your pain receptors. That makes you feel extreme pain when someone touches you or your temperature changes, or you feel no pain even when someone hurts you badly.
- Compression neuropathy: This type of neuropathy happens when damage happens only to one nerve which controls blood vessels. It can compress or narrow the blood vessels, which restricts the blood flow to nerves, causing pain, tingling, swelling of fingers, or numbness. Compression injury or repetitive strain can cause neuropathy. Carpel tunnel syndrome is a common example of compression neuropathy.
- Postherpetic neuropathy: This neuropathy is a complication of shingles. It affects the area of the body where you have had shingles. 10 to 18% of people who have shingles will develop this neuropathy, and older people who have shingles are more likely to experience it.
- Diabetic neuropathy: As the name implies, it is a complication of diabetes. As diabetes increases blood sugar levels, it can damage the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the nerves. The decrease in supply makes it difficult for nerves to function. This type of neuropathy mostly comes under peripheral neuropathy. Mostly it causes pain in the feet.
Signs
Symptoms of nerve pain are:
- Burning, shooting, and stabbing pain
- Tingling and numbness in arms and legs.
- Persistent pain or pain without any injury or trigger
- Feel unpleasant or abnormal
- Difficulty in sleeping
- Difficulty in expressing yourself
- Pain from rubbing something against your skin, cold or temperatures, or even brushing your hair
Having two or more symptoms means you should go to the doctor.
Treatment
The main goal of treatment is to treat the cause and nerve pain symptoms. For example, if diabetes causes nerve pain, then the first line of treatment is focused on managing blood sugar levels than the symptoms. Treatment is given by medications, therapies, or psychological counseling.
- Medications such as anti-seizure drugs or antidepressants are used to treat symptoms of nerve pain. Topical treatments such as lidocaine or capsaicin (can be used as ointments and creams) on the painful area to reduce pain. Your doctor can use nerve blocks to reduce the pain signals. But they are temporary, so to make them work you need to take them on repeat.
- Therapies like physical therapy and occupational therapy are used to reduce pain and build strength to manage pain.
- Psychological counseling is used to reduce your stress, anxiety, or depression that cause harming your mental health. It also helps to manage pain.
Usually, a multimodal approach is used to treat nerve pain, which is a combination of all the above treatments or even surgery or implants also used for better results.
Nerve pain is a chronic disease caused by diseases, infections, or head injuries. It happens when any damage happens to the nerves of the central nervous system or peripheral system. It gets worse over time. So, you need to note the symptoms mentioned above for prompt treatment. Early treatment can help you manage your symptoms and improve your life.
If you want to learn more about managing your nerve pain, call us for a consultation. Visit Doral Health & Wellness Pain Relief Department in Brooklyn, to get professional help and guidance on how to manage your problem. Call us on + 1-718-367-2555 to get a consultation. If you need help learning coping methods, register your information and make direct contact with our doctors at https://yuz88hfiyh7.typeform.com/Doralintake. Log on to www.doralhw.org. Or visit us at 1797 Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11212.
