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Concept
Diabetic neuropathy
Summary
Diabetic neuropathy is various types of nerve damage associated with diabetes mellitus. Symptoms depend on the site of nerve damage and can include motor changes such as weakness; sensory symptoms such as numbness, tingling, or pain; or autonomic changes such as urinary symptoms. These changes are thought to result from a microvascular injury involving small blood vessels that supply nerves (vasa nervorum). Relatively common conditions which may be associated with diabetic neuropathy include distal symmetric polyneuropathy; third, fourth, or sixth cranial nerve palsy; mononeuropathy; mononeuropathy multiplex; diabetic amyotrophy; and autonomic neuropathy.
Diabetic neuropathy can affect any peripheral nerves including sensory neurons, motor neurons, and the autonomic nervous system. Therefore, diabetic neuropathy has the potential to affect essentially any organ system and can cause a range of symptoms. There are several distinct syndromes based on the organ systems affected.
Longer nerve fibers are affected to a greater degree than shorter ones because nerve conduction velocity is slowed in proportion to a nerve's length. In this syndrome, decreased sensation and loss of reflexes occur first in the toes on each foot, then extend upward. It is usually described as a glove-stocking distribution of numbness, sensory loss, dysesthesia and nighttime pain. The pain can feel like burning, pricking sensation, achy or dull. A pins and needles sensation is common. Loss of proprioception, the sense of where a limb is in space, is affected early. These patients cannot feel when they are stepping on a foreign body, like a splinter, or when they are developing a callus from an ill-fitting shoe. Consequently, they are at risk of developing ulcers and infections on the feet and legs, which can lead to amputation. Similarly, these patients can get multiple fractures of the knee, ankle or foot, and develop a Charcot joint. Loss of motor function results in dorsiflexion, contractures of the toes, and loss of the interosseous muscle function that leads to contraction of the digits, so-called hammer toes.
Official source
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