What Is Peripheral Nerve Damage?

Nerve damage sounds scary no matter where it is. Damaged nerves affect the way you move. If you damage nerves in your brain, it can affect the way you think, process information, and remember things. Peripheral nerve damage is nerve damage that happens outside of the brain and spinal cord. Common symptoms of peripheral nerve damage usually include things like indigestion, pain in the hands and feet, and poor circulation.

Understanding the signs of peripheral nerve damage and how to treat it are important to reestablishing normal living and guaranteeing a good quality of life. Traumatic injuries or serious infections are common causes of peripheral nerve damage. Sometimes the damage is lasting, but treating a curable condition can often alleviate symptoms.

To overcome the symptoms and associated pain of nerve damage, there are things you can do to treat the damage and restore proper function. We’ve put together some helpful information to help understand the signs of damage and what to do.

The Common Symptoms of Peripheral Nerve Damage

There is a wide range of nerve damage symptoms. Different people may experience symptoms differently. A small change in the way your nerves work can have a significant impact on the way you move or think. For example, some people have trouble controlling their bladders after nerve damage, while others lose muscle strength. Nerve damage can affect the way people sense changes in temperatures. Someone with nerve damage, for instance, can have trouble sensing whether their stove is hot or have challenges feeling pain.

Sometimes people can sense nerve damage when they notice their hands or feet are tingling. The tingling often spreads upward into the limbs and can get worse the longer the nerve damage is there. If you have trouble moving or controlling the movement of your hands or other limbs, it could be due to nerve damage.

If you feel pain doing normal, everyday activities, it’s another sign of nerve damage. People with damaged nerves complain that they are very sensitive to heat or even touch. Simply touching a hard object can trigger shooting pain in the body.

In serious cases of nerve damage, people can completely lose the function of their limbs. They’re essentially paralyzed or lose strength in the legs, the face, or other parts of the body.

These are just some of the signs of nerve damage. The bottom line is, that anytime you or someone you know experiences a loss of normal function, you should go see a doctor.

What a Doctor Will Do

How will seeing a doctor help with peripheral nerve damage? After feeling weakness or pain in your hands or feet, seeing a doctor is the first step toward treatment and symptom alleviation.

A doctor and their team can conduct tests designed to determine whether there is nerve damage and what to do. They can either prescribe medicines, physical therapy, or other treatments designed to help. In serious cases, doctors can direct you to a surgeon who can repair nerve damage long-term.

Research with Peptides

Research indicates that the peptide Tesofensine has significant neuroprotective properties. Tesofensine is effective because it inhibits the presynaptic reuptake of the neurotransmitters noradrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.

These peptides are short chains of amino acids that drive certain responses in the body or brain. There is ongoing research designed to find out how research peptide Tesofensine and other peptides can help.

The Causes of Peripheral Nerve Damage

As previously stated, many instances of nerve damage are caused by traumatic injuries. If you’re in a car accident, for example, crushing injuries can impact the way your nerves work. However, autoimmune diseases and inherited disorders can also cause nerve damage. People with diabetes often complain about the loss of feeling in their hands and feet. They feel tingling in their limbs or feel dizzy. Tumors can also grow to the point where they interrupt normal nerve function. Finally, serious infections like shingles hepatitis, leprosy and Lyme disease can cause peripheral nerve damage.

Alcoholism, exposure to poisons, and addiction can affect nerves. Likewise, sometimes the issue is simply due to a sporting injury that puts too much pressure on a peripheral nerve.

If you or someone you know is experiencing any signs or symptoms of nerve damage, see a doctor as soon as possible. An early diagnosis can make treatment much simpler and help improve the quality of life. Often, treatment of the underlying condition will resolve symptoms and restore normal nerve performance.