Diabetic Neuropathy

Diabetic neuropathy can be tricky for a non-specialist to diagnosis, because the symptoms vary case by case. If you’re in pain, you want to avoid unnecessary appointments and travel. The endocrinologists at AdventHealth comfort people with this complication every single day. We’re skilled at listening, recognizing neuropathy symptoms, and analyzing your glucose-monitoring history, because you deserve to feel better sooner. With the help of our neurology team, we may conduct these pain-free muscle strength and reflex tests:

• Electromyography (EMG). Measures the mild electrical effect on your muscles.
• Filament Test. Uses a soft nylon fiber to gauge your sensitivity to touch.
• Nerve Conduction Studies. Tracks how quickly mild electric currents take to travel along certain nerves.
• Quantitative Sensory Testing. Assesses how you respond to vibrations and changes in temperature.

Once our experienced experts have identified all the pieces of this condition, we can treat both cause and symptoms, giving you the tools you need for effective neuropathy pain management. It’s all so you can get back to doing all the things you enjoy.

Symptoms of diabetic neuropathy can be startling. You might experience anything from sharp leg pains to numbness or dizziness to difficulty seeing. We encourage you to stay positive, and empower you to reach out in your time of need. Diagnosing neuropathy is the first step to helping treat your symptoms. To make diagnosis and treatment easier, diabetic neuropathy is boiled down to four different categories:

• Autonomic Neuropathy. This condition affects your heart, bladder, lungs, stomach, intestines, sex organs, and eyes.
• Mononeuropathy causes pain in a single nerve usually in the torso, legs, or face.
• Peripheral Neuropathy. The most diagnosed complication, it includes pain or numbness in your feet and legs, spreading to your hands and arms.
• Radiculoplexus Neuropathy (diabetic amyotrophy). This involves pain in the hips, thighs, and buttocks and atrophies muscles in your legs.

Diabetic neuropathy isn’t reversible, but it is treatable. We’re here to help ease your diabetic nerve pain and support your body with a range of medications that manage complications, relieve symptoms, restore function to nerves, and slow the progression of the disease. The best way to prevent this condition is to monitor your blood-sugar levels, eat well, avoid smoking, and be proactive about meeting with an endocrinologist. We’ll work with you one-on-one, guiding you on a path to better diabetic neuropathy pain management and care.

Education is the first step to taking control of your diabetes. You’re already here, taking that step, and we both applaud you and are here to continue helping. In an effort to support your initiative in diabetes management, we are committed to improving our solutions with continued research. We participate in national studies for diabetes management at our Translational Research Institute (TRI) for Metabolism and Diabetes in Florida, working to give you and all future generations the chance to enjoy healthier, pain-free lives.