Poly neuropathy: Diagnosis and treatment

Poly neuropathy is a disease of the peripheral nervous system of different cause, which is accompanied by muscle weakness and numbness. The nervous system of people with the brain as arbiter is the management and control of all body and organ functions. Distinction is made between the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, whereby the former all peripheral nerve fibres includes all nerve structures above the spinal cord level, including brain, the latter.

Polyneuropathy and nervous system

As fine on AST lungs of a tree are the nerve fibers of the peripheral nervous system of the spinal cord and make contact to the "executive bodies" such as muscles, skin and internal organs. The information exchange is done via control pulses away launched by the brain and via led to the brain information from sense organs or the skin.

Alone - seemingly passive - upright standing a person requires tremendous coordination, incoming information from sense organs like balance organs, to coordinate eyes or touch sensors in the skin with the control of important muscle groups, especially the legs from the brain. These processes mostly in the subconscious fashion of course still much more complicated for complex motion sequences.

Feel the ability existing in the healthy, presupposes the existence of many different specialized sensors in the skin to touch, heat and cold measurement or sense of pain and the forwarding of the relevant information through the nervous system. The aforementioned qualities of mind are directed in the nerves as well as the impulses from the brain to the muscles of specific fibres.

Cause of polyneuropathy

The various forms of polyneuropathy are diseases of the peripheral nervous system as a whole. Following disease or factors come as a trigger of polyneuropathy in consideration:

1. Diabetes mellitus
2. Diseases of the immune system
3. Poisoning
4. Alcoholism
5. Vascular disease
6. Rheumatic diseases
7. Tumors
8. Kidney disease

The polyneuropathies are thus common expression or peripheral nervous system response to a disease or injury affecting the organism as a whole. Depending on which features of the nerves in particular are affected, we speak of sensitive, motor or mixed sensitive motor polyneuropathies.

Symptoms of polyneuropathy

Different forms of polyneuropathy are distinguished on the basis of the quality of mainly affected nerves, the attack pattern and history. The spectrum ranges up to mixed forms of polyneuropathy from purely sensitive polyneuropathies with numbness or paraesthesia of skin over purely motor polyneuropathies with muscle paralysis.

Diagnosis

An important criterion of distinction, which allows also a better clarification of causative of disease, is the question of whether the nerve damage is mainly the inner cable harness of the nerve or rather called the outer casing, also the myelin sheath, subject. The latter acts as "electrical insulation" and is for the transmission speed of the nerve of major importance.

The diagnosis of a poly neuropathy arises from the symptoms of the patient, the neurological examination, blood tests, as well as special investigation of the muscles and peripheral nerves, allowing a differentiation of different poly neuropathy forms. Electromyography and determination of nerve conduction velocities damage the "nerve insulation" of damage of the nerve fibers themselves can be delineated by doing what can be both diagnostic and therapeutic significance.

Treatment of polyneuropathy

The individual forms of polyneuropathy treatment options depend on the underlying cause. In immune-related polyneuropathies like the Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which Pan Arteritis nodosa or rheumatoid arthritis, immune-suppressive therapy forms for example with cortisone, azathioprine, or other substances into consideration come first and foremost. Other alternative procedures in the Guillain-Barré Syndrome are administering so-called immunoglobulins or the plasmapheresis of damaging immune factors from the body be washed out.

Effective control of the diabetic metabolism through weight reduction, drugs or insulin is indicated for the treatment of diabetic polyneuropathy. The numbness, pain and muscle cramps in the legs respond to drugs such as carbamazepine or Thioctazid also in some cases.

Poisoning is the spontaneous or medicinal removal of each toxic substance from the body in the first place. Strict alcohol abstinence, as well as the administration of vitamin B1 supplements is necessary in alcoholism. Polyneuropathies that occur in the context of other underlying diseases such as kidney damage or tumours are treated by the therapy of the underlying disease.

Prevention

Prevention ways to logically in poisonings, partially with diabetes, but not in immune-related polyneuropathies. The relevant principles are dealt with in the presentation of the respective underlying diseases.

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