What to do about neuropathic pain?

Why does neuropathic pain occur?

The reason why neuropathic pain occurs in the majority of cases is some injury or damage to the nerve fibers, which further affects their functionality, resulting in wrong signals being sent to pain centers. As for the causes of injury or damage of the nerve fibers in question, the most common are diabetes, shingles, and conditions such as multiple sclerosis, HIV infection or other autoimmune disorders. However, alcoholism might also result in neuropathic pain, because excessive use of alcohol can also damage the nerves. This kind of pain is very common after certain surgeries of the spine, as well as after amputation, but it also occurs due to a number of back or hip problems. There are people who are born with peripheral nerve damage, which means that this kind of pain can also be congenital. What is important to know is that some of accompanying symptoms might also be numbness and tingling sensation in the affected area.

How to deal with neuropathic pain and can it be healed permanently?

The fact is that the real cause of neuropathic pain is sometimes not at all easy to determine. The doctors set the diagnosis according to the symptoms of the patients and information about the frequency and the time when the pain began to appear, although sometimes certain tests need to be done in order to rule out a number of possible disorders that have this kind of pain as a symptom. When it comes to the permanent cure for this kind of pain, unfortunately, it does not exist. A number of techniques and methods that might help in controlling the pain exist, but the truth is that people simply have to learn to live with this pain. It might take some time before the patients find the therapy that suits them best and most frequently, medications such as anesthetics, antidepressants and anticonvulsants are the first on the list.

Sometimes the doctor might suggest medications that belong to the group of NSAIDs, or injections such as nerve blocks, in case the medications do not help. Besides medications, physical therapy is also helpful, although there are cases in which none of these methods might be helpful enough. This is when the surgery is considered as an alternative, because it is regarded as the last resort, meaning that it is necessary to try out all other methods of conventional treatment before the doctor suggests this invasive method.