Idiopathic Neuropathy

What is Idiopathic Neuropathy?

A patient will go to their doctor with certain symptoms. These can include numbness, tingling, and pain, unsteadiness when standing or walking and muscle weakness other symptoms may be feelings of faintness when standing. They may be vague or strange sensations (paresthesia), inability to feel pain, touch or temperature. Some other symptoms can be lack of coordination, loss of reflexes, muscle weakness, loss of muscle control, muscle twitching, cramping or spasms, difficulty walking or moving limbs.

There are even symptoms related to the autonomic nervous system such as dizziness, fainting, sweating abnormalities, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abnormal heart rate or blood pressure and sexual dysfunction.

The doctor does a series of tests and the diagnosis is neuropathy. Sensory neuropathy is the pain, numbness, and tingling resulting from damaged sensory nerves. The unsteadiness and muscle weakness means a motor nerve has been damaged – in other words, the nerves which relay the orders from the brain to the muscle to get them to move isn’t working well.

The doctor will next look to see what caused this problem, as in order to help the patient, whatever caused it needs to be identified and brought under control. For example, in a diabetic, it is the blood sugar that causes the damage and thus the blood sugar needs to be normalized. Sometimes the neuropathy was caused by trauma – a car accident, sports injury or even surgery. Nothing more needs to be done as the trauma is over. Of course, someone who continues to have injuries might make the neuropathy worse.

There is no known reason?

Sometimes the peripheral neuropathy seems to happen for no particular reason.

Doctors call this disorder “idiopathic”, which means “of unknown cause.” Typically, idiopathic peripheral neuropathy occurs in people over 60 years old, but not necessarily. It may progress slowly, or may not progress at all, after the initial onset.

As with all neuropathies, it can be very disruptive to someone’s normal life and lifestyle.

What to do.

It doesn’t make sense that there is no cause for this problem. Nerves just don’t get damaged on their own. As with any medical condition or disease, there is always a cause.

If you are told you have idiopathic neuropathy, you should continue to look for a cause. A specialist might be able to track down the cause, or a nutritionist might be able to find what deficiencies are causing the nerves to deteriorate

Here is a list of causes that we have found and compiled in hopes that you can figure out what is causing the problem and eliminate the cause to improve your condition.

Causes & Risk Factors of Neuropathy

Take a Quiz: Am I doing everything I can to daily help my neuropathy?

Find out what lifestyle changes will help, take the quiz and get our suggestions and get our assistance on what you can do.

Take Our Quiz

Restore Nerve Health   Get Your Quality of Life back

Studies & Research on Nerve Health

Want to Know More About Neuropathy –
Neuropathy Information Hub