American Addiction Centers (AAC) is committed to delivering original, truthful, accurate, unbiased, and medically current information. We strive to create content that is clear, concise, and easy to understand. The diagnostic process may involve neurological examination, blood alcohol neuropathy stages tests, and electromyography. People who drink heavily on a regular basis and have one or more of the following symptoms should contact a doctor. We’ve tried, tested, and written unbiased reviews of the best online therapy programs including Talkspace, Betterhelp, and Regain.
How do doctors diagnose alcoholic neuropathy?
The treatments depend on what’s causing it and the symptoms you experience. For others, treating and minimizing the symptoms and their effects is the best approach. A qualified and trained healthcare provider can diagnose it, but the diagnosis process almost always involves some form of diagnostic, imaging or laboratory testing.
Neurological Effects of Alcohol
It’s also important to remember that what works for one person may not work for another, because peripheral neuropathy can happen very differently from person to person. Fatigue is a symptom that can happen with conditions that can cause peripheral neuropathy. It can also happen due to living with severe or long-term pain due to peripheral neuropathy, or because of autonomic problems from peripheral neuropathy.
Alcoholic neuropathy: possible mechanisms and future treatment possibilities
Therefore, alcoholic neuropathy may occur by a combination of the direct toxic effects of ethanol or its metabolites and nutritional deficiencies, including thiamine deficiency. The precise mechanisms responsible for toxicity on the peripheral nervous system, however, have not yet been clarified. The amount of ethanol which causes clinically evident peripheral neuropathy is also still unknown.
Risk Factors For Alcoholic Neuropathy
Impotence, diarrhea, constipation, or other symptoms are treated when necessary. These symptoms often respond poorly to treatment in people with alcoholic neuropathy. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ Early alcoholic neuropathy, usually presenting as sensory symptoms in the extremities, is reversible if the patient stops drinking and establishes proper nutrition.
- A qualified and trained healthcare provider can diagnose it, but the diagnosis process almost always involves some form of diagnostic, imaging or laboratory testing.
- Once alcohol use has been addressed, your doctor can focus on the neuropathy itself.
- A review of the human literature implicates nutritional deficiencies, most often thiamine deficiency, that are common in alcoholic patients, as commonly accompanying complicating factors in the development of this neuropathy.
- Alcohol misuse can lead to neurological damage that can affect multiple areas of a person’s health and well-being.
- The nerves that run outside of the spinal cord and brain are called peripheral nerves.
- Alcoholic neuropathy is a severe condition caused by excessive alcohol use.
What can I expect if I have this condition?
Progressed disease
