Diabetes can cause a number of health complications, with one of the most common being nerve damage. This condition, known as diabetic neuropathy, affects up to half of men and women with diabetes.
Symptoms of diabetic neuropathy include:
- Burning, tingling, numbness, or weakness in your extremities
- Muscle spasms
- Increased or decreased sensitivity to temperature, touch, and injury
- Balance problems
- Loss of muscle tone, especially in your hands and feet
Without treatment, diabetic neuropathy can grow worse, which can lead to debilitating pain and a lower quality of life. If you have diabetic neuropathy, the health specialist at Pain Institute of Southern Arizona may be able to help you with nerve stimulation therapy.
Understanding nerve stimulation therapy
When you experience pain or discomfort, nerves in the affected area send messages to your brain. Once those messages arrive, your brain processes them and registers the sensations you feel.
Unlike medications that only mask these responses, nerve stimulation therapy disrupts the communication to your brain to change how you feel. This technique is known as neuromodulation. It works by delivering low-voltage waves of electricity to the nerves signaling pain. These gentle pulses of current alter or weaken the messages from your nerves before they reach your brain. As a result, your brain doesn’t register the same level of discomfort. That means that even if your pain is present, your brain no longer registers it as intensely.
How nerve stimulation therapy works
We provide nerve stimulation therapy at our offices, so there’s no need to go to a hospital. First, we attach adhesive pads with electrodes to your skin. Then we send gentle electrical impulses to interrupt the pain signals that are being sent from the problematic nerves. This energy also causes the body to release endorphins to naturally help relieve pain.
We can tailor this noninvasive treatment to your individual needs by controlling the intensity of the electrical stimulation, the number of pulses per second, and the duration of each pulse.
Depending on your neuropathy symptoms and your body’s response to the treatment, we might also recommend implanting a spinal cord stimulator. This form of neuromodulation uses a similar approach to relieving pain. But, with this treatment, we implant a small stimulator and you control it with a remote control.
To see if nerve stimulation therapy can relieve your neuropathy pain, book an appointment online or over the phone with Pain Institute of Southern Arizona today.
