Diabetic Nerve Damage: 7 Strategies That Can Ease Neuropathic Pain

Diabetic nerve pain usually begins in your feet. At first, it’s mild, tolerable, and easy to ignore. However, as high blood sugar causes more nerve damage, the pain becomes sharp and excruciating and affects your mobility.

At any stage of diabetic nerve pain, you can turn to the Alliance Spine and Pain Centers team for personalized care that relieves your pain. As specialists in interventional and regenerative pain medicine, they offer innovative therapies that block pain and promote nerve healing.

Here are seven therapies for improving diabetic nerve pain:

1. Physical therapy

If you haven’t already tried physical therapy, we may recommend it (alone or with other therapies) at the start of your treatment.

Physical therapy for diabetic neuropathy often involves nerve gliding. Nerve gliding is a group of exercises that move the nerves. The movement eases pain and may boost healing by increasing blood flow and delivering essential nutrients.

2. Topical medications

Patches placed on your skin may contain several medications. Two of the most common are lidocaine and capsaicin. Lidocaine is a local anesthetic that stops nerves from sending pain signals. 

Capsaicin desensitizes the nerves, easing your pain by reducing their activity. We may recommend Qutenza®, an intensive capsaicin treatment you wear for 30 minutes in our office.

3. Oral medications

Over-the-counter pain relievers may relieve mild to moderate neuropathic pain. You may need stronger prescription medications if your pain worsens.

Antidepressants and antiseizure medications are most often prescribed. Though these medications have primary uses that are unrelated to neuropathy, they’re also effective pain relievers.

4. Spinal cord stimulator

A spinal cord stimulator can significantly relieve pain by blocking pain messages in the spinal cord. We implant lead wires that send mild electrical pulses into the spinal nerves carrying the pain message from your body to your brain.

The impulses scramble or block the nerve signals. As a result, your brain doesn't get the pain message.

The lead wires and small pulse generator can stay implanted for as long as they continue to relieve pain.

5. Nerve block

We perform a nerve block by injecting a local anesthetic (with or without a corticosteroid) around the targeted nerve. The medication stops nerve signals, so your brain doesn’t get the message, and your pain decreases.

Though we can target any nerve, we often perform a lumbar sympathetic nerve block for diabetic neuropathy. Injecting the medication into the lumbar spine (lower back) blocks the pain messages after they reach the spinal cord, which doesn’t affect sensation in your feet.

6. Regenerative medicine

Regenerative medicine uses the body’s natural cells to promote nerve healing and regrowth. We specialize in several regenerative medicine treatments:

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections

PRP contains concentrated platelets obtained from a sample of your blood. We inject the PRP at the site of your damaged nerves.

Platelets are one of your body’s most essential healing cells. After they’re injected, they release proteins (growth factors) that activate the healing response, speed up healing, reduce inflammation, and promote new blood vessel production.

Bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC)

Adult stem cells thrive in various places throughout your body. They have the crucial role of self-replicating to create a new stem cell. The new cell develops into whatever cell type is needed to build new tissues and repair the damaged nerve.

Bone marrow is a good source of adult stem cells that regenerate muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and nerves. We withdraw a sample of bone marrow from your hip and use it to create BMAC. Then, we promote nerve regeneration by injecting the BMAC near the damaged nerves.

Exosome therapy

Stem cells release exosomes, microscopic sacs carrying biochemicals like growth factors and genetic material. Exosomes release these substances, triggering healing and regenerative activities in cells.

After isolating exosomes from stem cells, we can inject them alone or together with other regenerative therapies.

Stromal vascular fraction (SVF) therapy

SVF is a mixture of regenerative stem cells and growth factors harvested from body fat. After bone marrow, body fat is one of the best sources of stem cells that heal nerves and other musculoskeletal tissues.

We use liposuction to remove some fat. Then we create SVF by extracting, cleansing, and concentrating the essential healing cells.

7. Nerve decompression

Nerve decompression is an emerging treatment for diabetic neuropathy. As high blood sugar damages the nerves, they become inflamed. Then, the swollen nerves are pinched by the surrounding semirigid tissues, causing severe pain.

During decompression surgery, the semirigid tissues are removed. As a result, blood flow improves, pain decreases, and the nerve has a chance to heal.

Call us at Alliance Spine and Pain Centers or use online booking today if you need relief from diabetic nerve pain.