Neuropathy Diagnosed
Diagnosis peripheral neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy causes, peripheral neuropathy diagnosis
The number one step to cure or prevent this disease is to correctly diagnose
the cause of the disease. It requires a complete neurological evaluation.
Firstly your clinical history is completely checked for facts related to
your health such as any co existing conditions, previous treatments or medications.
So be sure to have your entire medical history as much as possible, the
complete assessment gives clues to solving the case.
To check for symptoms and if you are neuropath or not certain tests are
to be conducted, these are as follows
Electro diagnostic Test
There are 2 sub categories here
Nerve conduction studies are the tests which evaluate how the nerves are
working and if the electric impulses are being transmitted properly or
not.
Electromyography sees the electrical activity of the muscles.
Here these techniques are general but they can not detect Small fiber
neuropathy as they measure only large fibers.
Skin biopsy
Neuropathy for smaller regions can not be measured by the general techniques
and require much more accurate procedure, this procedure can detect the
loss of epidermal nerve fibers faster than the other test.
Autonomic tests
The full name of this test is Quantitative Sudomotor Axon Reflex Test
or QSART in short. It measures the nerve fibers that are responsible for
sweating and blood pressure. It can detect the changes in your blood pressure
when you are standing or lying down, all these processes are automatically
controlled in the body and this test can check these processes.
Nerve Biopsy
A full nerve biopsy provides tissue samples for pathological examination.
It can show any abnormalities that were not detected by the previous tests
such as inflammation of blood vessels. This is done when all the other
tests fail and if the neuropathy is a progressive one.
In addition to all these tests there are the traditional tests such as
blood tests, urine tests, radiology tests, etc. These all can be more
or less helpful in diagnosing neuropathy and can help find the cause.
All the others tests such as test for cancer, diabetes, infections are
helpful too.
The treatment of neuropathy is mainly based on the cause without which
it can not be treated and is that case is helped only by medicines to
control the pain. Such a case is called Idiopathic.
