How to Effectively Manage Chronic Neuropathic Pain

Chronic neuropathic or nerve pain can have a significant impact on all aspects of your life. Living with chronic pain is difficult and can affect your work, your hobbies, and your personal relationships. It’s important to understand the causes of neuropathy and its resulting pain in order to determine the best course of treatment.

What is Neuropathic Pain?

Neuropathic pain is essentially nerve pain. It occurs when your nervous system is damaged or not working as it should.

When a nerve fiber is damaged, it can send the wrong signals to your body’s pain centers. You can feel neuropathic pain at the site of the nerve damage, in surrounding areas, and often in other areas of your central nervous system.

Patients suffering from neuropathic pain often describe it as a shooting or burning pain in a specific area of the body. This pain sometimes goes away on its own but is often chronic, lasting for more than three months. The pain can be severe.

The Journal of Pain Research estimates that up to 10% of the population suffers from neuropathic pain. Older adults, diabetics, and cancer survivors are more likely to suffer from the effects of this type of nerve pain.

What Causes Nerve Pain?

Neuropathic pain can have a number of causes, including:

• Alcoholism
• Amputation (causing so-called phantom pain)
• Arthritis in the spine
• Central nervous system disorders such as strokes and Parkinson’s disease
• Chemotherapy drugs, including cisplatin, paclitaxel, and vincristine
• Complex regional pain syndrome
• Diabetes
• Facial nerve problems
• Herniated discs
• HIV infection or AIDS
• Multiple myeloma
• Multiple sclerosis
• Nerve or spinal cord compression
• Radiation therapy.
• Spine surgery
• Syphilis
• Thyroid problems
• Trauma or surgeries with resulting nerve damage
• Vitamin deficiencies

What Are the Symptoms of Neuropathic Pain?

Any of the following symptoms can be cause by neuropathic pain:

• Shooting, burning, stabbing, or electric shock-like pain
• Tinging and numbness, or a “pins and needles” feeling
• Sensitivity to cold temperatures and touch—brushing against the skin, pressure on the skin, etc.
• An unpleasant, abnormal sensation on or under the skin
• Trouble sleeping and resulting emotional problems

These symptoms are typically related to one or more primary types of neuropathy—peripheral neuropathy (affecting nerves in the arms, legs, hands, and feet); cranial neuropathy (affecting eyes and ears); autonomic neuropathy (affecting the involuntary nervous system); and focal neuropathy (affecting just a single nerve or group of nerves).

How Can You Treat Neuropathic Pain?

In treating neuropathic pain, the main goals are to provide relief from the pain, restore functionality, and treat the underlying cause of the pain. There are many approaches that a provider may try, including:

• Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as Aleve or Motrin, for short-term pain relief
• Topical treatments, such as lidocaine or capsaicin patches, creams, or ointments, applied directly to the painful area
• Nutritional supplements
• Nerve blocks, including steroid injections directly into the affected nerves
• If suffering from nerve-related seizures, anticonvulsant drugs such as gabapentin (Neurontin®), pregabalin (Lyrica®), and topiramate (Topamax®)
• Better management of any instigating conditions, such as diabetes
• Physical therapy
• Relaxation therapy
• Massage therapy
• Acupuncture
• Implanting a special device to electrically stimulate affected nerves

How Valley Medical and Wellness Treats Chronic Neuropathic Pan

Chronic nerve pain can be difficult to effectively treat with traditional approaches. If neuropathic pain continues for several months, it may be necessary to employ stronger methods to relieve the pain and help you get your life back.

The chronic pain experts at Valley Medical and Wellness know that a multi-therapy approach is often required to mitigate chronic neuropathic pain. In creating a personalized treatment plan, we choose from a variety of injections, nerve blocks, and other interventional therapies combined with medication-based treatment. If necessary, we prescribe buprenorphine and other opioid-based medications that work by attaching themselves to pain receptors in the brain. These medications block pain signals and can effectively manage the persistent effects of chronic nerve pain.

If you are suffering from chronic neuropathic pain, contact Valley Medical and Wellness today for a consultation. We can evaluate your specific situation and recommend a personalized course of treatment. Make an appointment today at one of our five convenient clinic locations in Burnsville, Minneapolis, Woodbury, Rochester, and Bemidji or call (612) 444-3000 to learn more.

Author

Michael Miller Michael Miller is a Business Process Writer at Valley Medical and Wellness. He's an established writer with more than 200 books and thousands of articles published over the past three decades. He writes on a variety of topics, from healthcare to technology to music. He is also a member of the Interstellar Foundation, dedicated to telling the story of humankind via NASA spacecraft traveling beyond the solar system.