What Black People Need To Know About Diabetic Nerve Damage

Diabetes can cause several health complications. One of those complications is diabetic neuropathy – a condition in which your nerves are damaged. This damage can lead to different organs not functioning as they should. If you’re living with diabetes, it’s essential to know how this can affect you and how to prevent it.  What’s Diabetic Neuropathy? In diabetic neuropathy, prolonged high blood sugar levels lead to nerve damage. Since nerves carry messages to different organs around the body, any damage to them can affect how well your body functions. For example, damage in the nerves that lead to the heart can cause changes in your heartbeat. You can also experience changes in the sensations you feel. That’s why many people living with diabetes have numbness or tingling in their extremities. Diabetic neuropathy can also be quite painful.  The symptoms of diabetic neuropathy usually progress gradually and can depend on which of the four types you have. Peripheral neuropathy affects the extremities so its symptoms include numbness, tingling, pain, and muscle cramps. Autonomic neuropathy damages the nerves in the autonomic nervous system so you can expect to have difficulty swallowing, drops in blood pressure, bladder problems, and trouble with sexual response. ...