Painful tingling, burning or numbness in the hands and feet are symptoms of neuropathies. Neuropathies are damaged nerves that are complaining.
Unfortunately, the whinging, often unprovoked, doesn’t always stop at uncomfortable sensations – it can also mean that the nerves fail to communicate when there really is a big problem. This failure can lead to very traumatic consequences, including losing bits and pieces such as fingers, toes or even feet and hands to amputation.
Neuropathy is a problem in a number of conditions, but diabetics are particularly prone to the condition.
Nerve wear and tear
Wear and tear happens on every part of the body. But for nerves this is particularly a problem because they are so big. Some neurons stretch from you big toe to your brain.
In diabetics, it appears that the ability to recoup is on a go slow, so wear and tear is not patched up fast enough, to keep the lines of communication open.
The million dollar question is, why are diabetics so inefficient at patching up their nerves.
Diabetics inefficient nerve restoration
Researches from Johns Hopkins think it is not really a nerve problem, but a blood vessel problem.
They pinched bits of skin, using a “punch” biopsy of 3 mm, from 20 people, 10 diabetics and 10 healthy people. Ouch !
They then called the people back several months later, and did it again from exactly the same spot as before. The second go, was to track how well the body had responded to the first attack. The fate of the nerves, blood vessels and nerve-supporting cells (Schwann cells) were all carefully recorded.
No, I don’t know how much they were paid, but I am pretty sure, the pursuit of knowledge would not have been sufficient compensation for me to line up to be “punched” twice.
Heal a punch biopsy programme
Both sets of people followed the same healing programme :
- First came blood vessels
- Then Schwann cells
- Then axons (nerves)
It was evident that in order for healing to occur, the nerves required Schwann cells to provide support, but the Schwann cells required blood vessels to feed them adequately, before they could set up a scaffold of support for the nerves.
People suffering from neuropathies were able to follow the programme but they did it much slower than the healthy folks. The delay in healing, seemed to have kicked off with the blood vessel growth rate being significantly slower in the patients with neuropathies.
So it’s not a nerve problem but a blood vessel problem
Nervous breakdowns start with broken blood vessels
Of course, this makes sense, because broken blood vessels are also the problem with heart disease and stroke.
Love your blood vessels
High sugar levels really hurt blood vessels by poking holes in them as well as blocking them up with gunge, so get the levels within the normal range – do diet, drugs, exercise whatever it takes, this is the big risk.
Vitamin D is particularly good to get those blood vessels bending like Beckham.
On top of that, get the 7 Big Spoons™ working for you.
Balance Eicosanoids | Rein in insulin | Dial down stress | Sleep ! | Increase Vit D | Culivate microflora | Think champion |
Intersted in learning more about the chemistry of diabetes ?
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Further reading
Why infections are difficult to overcome in diabetics | Drinking till you’re “motherless” leaves you stem cell less | A coffee a day keeps diabetes away |
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Did you learn something new or do you have a different perspective ? I’d love to hear from you so post me a comment below…..