Peripheral neuropathy often starts with numbness, pricking, or tingling in your toes or fingers. It can spread up to your feet or hands, leading to feelings of burning, freezing, or experiencing throbbing and/or shooting pain. This pain is usually more intense at night and might be constant or come and go. However, the numbness and pain usually affect both sides of your body the same way—both hands or both feet. Some types of peripheral neuropathy happen suddenly, while others slowly get worse over many years.

The symptoms of peripheral neuropathy often include:

• Difficulty walking or moving the arms
• Muscle weakness
• Loss of balance and coordination
• A sensation of wearing an invisible “glove” or “sock”
• Sharp, jabbing or electric-like pain
• Burning sensation or freezing pain
• Extreme sensitivity to touch
• Difficulty sleeping because of feet and leg pain
• Unusual sweating
• Abnormalities in blood pressure or pulse

The symptoms of peripheral neuropathy can vary, depending on whether motor, sensor, or autonomic nerves are damaged. While some neuropathies may harm all three types of nerves, others might only affect one or two.

Motor nerves play a crucial role by transmitting impulses from the brain and spinal cord to muscles, facilitating actions such as walking. However, motor nerve damage can severely impair these functions, leading to muscle weakness, difficulties with walking, and the occurrence of cramps and spasms.

Sensory nerves are crucial for sending messages from our muscles back to the spinal cord and brain. These nerves, acting as sensors, help us detect if things are sharp, rough, smooth, hot, or cold, and inform us about the movement of any body part. However, sensory nerve damage can lead to symptoms like tingling, numbness, pain, or extreme sensitivity to touch.

Autonomic nerves control involuntary or semi-voluntary functions like heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and sweating. Damage to these nerves can cause an irregular heartbeat, make someone feel dizzy when standing up, affect sweating, lead to problems swallowing, and trigger nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or constipation. It can also result in urination issues, abnormal pupil size, and sexual dysfunction. This shows how crucial autonomic nerves are to our body’s basic functions.

Peripheral neuropathy can strike many nerves (polyneuropathy) or just one nerve or a nerve group at once (mononeuropathy).

Mononeuropathy happens when damage affects a single nerve or a nerve group due to trauma, injury, local compression, prolonged pressure, or inflammation. Examples include:

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A wrist and hand disorder resulting from repetitive tasks such as using a computer keyboard, leading to discomfort and pain.
• Bell’s Palsy: This facial nerve disorder triggers sudden weakness or paralysis of the facial muscles, making the face droop on one side, impacting the ability to smile and close an eye.

Polyneuropathy is an umbrella term that describes when many nerves in the body are damaged all at once.

Celiac disease, an inherited condition, severely affects the small intestine, impairing the absorption of nutrients from food. This digestive disease can also trigger peripheral neuropathy among various disorders. Those with celiac disease are unable to tolerate gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. It is believed that a significant number of individuals in North America suffer from this condition but have not been diagnosed.

For individuals genetically susceptible to celiac disease, consuming gluten triggers an autoimmune reaction in the intestines. This reaction harms their gastrointestinal systems, causing various symptoms and hindering the absorption of nutrients from food. Interestingly, a study found some people with celiac disease experienced neuropathic symptoms before any digestive issues surfaced.

Doctors have found that many diabetic patients often get peripheral neuropathy, a condition that damages nerves. Now, they are investigating how this nerve damage might also affect people with prediabetes, known as impaired glucose tolerance or IGT. In the U.S., about 20 million people have prediabetes, sometimes called borderline diabetes, meaning their blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be considered Type 2 diabetes yet. If not addressed, those with prediabetes could face a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and even peripheral neuropathy due to nerve damage.

Many people with prediabetes show no symptoms, making it hard to catch early. Those who have diabetes face a higher chance of getting peripheral neuropathy, but often miss the warning signs like frequent urination, constant thirst, blurred vision, fatigue, cuts and bruises that heal slowly, and tingling or numbness in their hands or feet, because these symptoms appear slowly. If you’re over 45, carry extra weight, aren’t very active, have diabetes in your family history, or are part of an at-risk ethnic or minority group, getting checked for prediabetes is a smart move

Research shows that a little bit of weight loss, about 5 to 10% of your total body weight, along with moderate physical activity such as walking for 30 minutes a day five times a week, can lower your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes by 58%.