4 Strategies for Preventing Peripheral Neuropathy When You Have Diabetes

From vision loss to foot ulcers, the long list of complications linked to diabetes can affect you from head to toe. At the top of this list is peripheral neuropathy, or nerve damage, which affects up to half of people with diabetes. 

And if you consider that more than 38 million Americans are diagnosed with the disease, it follows that millions of Americans are dealing with peripheral neuropathy.

Since November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, Dr. Paul Gill and our team here at Gill Neuroscience want to play our part by focusing on preventive practices that can help keep peripheral neuropathy at bay.

The link between diabetes and peripheral neuropathy

To get started, we want you to understand why people with diabetes are so susceptible to nerve damage. When we talk about peripheral nerves, we’re referring to the extensive network of nerves that lies outside your central nervous system. 

At the core of diabetes is a lack of insulin and/or insulin resistance. Insulin is the hormone that delivers glucose from your blood to your cells, so when there’s a malfunction in this system, you end up with dangerously high levels of sugar in your blood.

This excess glucose can be damaging to your blood vessels and to your peripheral nerves. In most cases, diabetic neuropathy develops in areas that are farthest from your heart, namely your lower and upper extremities, though mostly in your lower limbs.

There are many reasons peripheral neuropathy is potentially problematic, starting with the fact that it can lead to slow-healing ulcers in your lower limbs. In fact, about one-third of people with diabetes develop a diabetic ulcer. Furthermore, half of these ulcers become infected, and 20% of these infections lead to amputation.

Given this very serious and irreversible consequence of peripheral neuropathy, any step you can take to protect your nerves is a step well worth taking.

Best practices for preventing peripheral neuropathy

Now that we’ve set the scene and provided a little motivation for preventing peripheral neuropathy when you have diabetes, let’s get into preventive practices, which include:

Manage your glucose levels

Far and away, the best thing you could do to prevent nerve damage is to stay on top of your blood sugar levels. It’s imperative that you work with your diabetes team to keep your glucose levels in check through insulin medications and lifestyle changes, which we get into next.

Get moving

The reason nerve damage is most acute in your lower limbs is because your blood vessels have to work harder to circulate blood so far from your heart. So do everything possible to keep the blood flowing in your lower limbs, and the best way to do that is to get moving. 

How you move is irrelevant, just as long as you get in some good steps each day.

Build calf muscles

A side benefit of moving around is building up muscles, and we want you to further focus on a specific muscle group — your calf muscles. These muscles play a big role in pushing blood back up to your heart, so you want to keep them strong. 

As a side note, you can also wear compression socks to help push blood back up.

Improve your diet

You know you should go easy on the sugar, but we also want you to improve your overall diet. Get away from processed and junk foods and add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins to your diet.

And get enough B vitamins, which directly influence nerve health, especially B12 vitamins. 

Not only will the strategies above help protect your nerve health — they will go a long way toward boosting your overall health.

For a more personalized peripheral neuropathy prevention plan, feel free to call our office in Houston, Texas, at 832-912-7777, or use our online request form to schedule an appointment.