In fact, neuropathy is a group of disorders.
A question we get all the time is, why did I get neuropathy?
If you read advertisements in the popular press then you would likely believe neuropathy is one condition. As we have discussed many times before and will discuss again today, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact neuropathy is actually a group of disorders.
Neuropathy is the term that simply refers to nerve function gone wrong. Of course this is a gross oversimplification but I’m sure you get the picture.
The known causes of neuropathy include diabetes, certain medications; including some chemotherapy, poisonings from things such as heavy metals and some insecticides.
There are also some devastating forms of neuropathy that are genetic. Most commonly this is the CMT family of neuropathies.
But perhaps the most common cause of neuropathy and the reason for many more cases of neuropathy now appearing each year is the general decline in fitness in our adult population resulting in metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes.
As doctors we commonly assign half the cases of neuropathy we see to metabolic syndrome. As you probably have read about here before metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, or syndrome X, are all the same condition.
In a nutshell, this serious health problem occurs either in very tiny time increments or over a long period of time when body fat increases and with it brings elevations in blood fats and blood sugars.
But the sad part is we are seeing it in younger and younger ages. Unfortunately, now we are seeing patients in their 30’s developing peripheral neuropathy!
One other factor that is imperative to note: Most patients we see in the clinic have several different potential causes of peripheral neuropathy. For one example, district cigarette smoking. Example two is the consumption of statin or anti-hypertensive drugs. And three, excess body fat and decrease in lean muscle mass as a result of years of poor health habits.
And here is the answer to the title question:
You may never know completely with 100% accuracy what caused your neuropathy.
However, you now know about some of the critical factors that need to be addressed in order to boost your potential for healing and recovery.
Here at NeuropathyDR this our ongoing job for you!
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