I don’t feel well today, and I’m going to tell you why whether you really want to know or not. Got that? Good. The complaints du jour are as follows: 1) my body temperature is only 95.4°; 2) I’m peeing way too often; 3) my heels hurt; 4) my right hand feels like it’s broken; 5) my balance is off; 6) I’ve got muscle weakness in both legs; and 7) holy crap, isn’t that enough?
In case you’re new here and don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, these are all symptoms of DIABETIC NEUROPATHY, both peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage to the limbs) and autonomic neuropathy (nerve damage to organs and glands). And lucky me — always an over-achiever — I have ALL of this miserable baloney at one time or another. Wikipedia’s definition appears below; my ongoing symptoms appear in red.
Peripheral neuropathy may be chronic (a long term condition where symptoms begin subtly and progress slowly) or acute (sudden onset, rapid progress and slow resolution). Motor nerves (that control muscles), sensory nerves, or autonomic nerves (that control automatic functions such as heart rate, body temperature and breathing), can be affected. More than one type of nerve may be affected at the same time.
Neuropathy may cause painful cramps, fasciculations (fine muscle twitching), muscle loss, bone degeneration, and changes in the skin, hair, and nails. Additionally, motor neuropathy may cause impaired balance and coordination or, most commonly, muscle weakness; sensory neuropathy may cause numbness to touch and vibration, reduced position sense causing poorer coordination and balance, reduced sensitivity to temperature change and pain, spontaneous tingling or burning pain, or skin allodynia (severe pain from normally nonpainful stimuli, such as light touch); and autonomic neuropathy may produce diverse symptoms, depending on the affected glands and organs, but common symptoms are poor bladder control, abnormal blood pressure or heart rate, and reduced ability to sweat normally.
Neuropathy may cause painful cramps, fasciculations (fine muscle twitching), muscle loss, bone degeneration, and changes in the skin, hair, and nails. Additionally, motor neuropathy may cause impaired balance and coordination or, most commonly, muscle weakness; sensory neuropathy may cause numbness to touch and vibration, reduced position sense causing poorer coordination and balance, reduced sensitivity to temperature change and pain, spontaneous tingling or burning pain, or skin allodynia (severe pain from normally nonpainful stimuli, such as light touch); and autonomic neuropathy may produce diverse symptoms, depending on the affected glands and organs, but common symptoms are poor bladder control, abnormal blood pressure or heart rate, and reduced ability to sweat normally.
Since it really wasn’t my plan to depress the living crap out of everybody I’ll lighten the mood a little with a couple of big announcements. First, UPS just delivered Sam’s big order of dried fruit from Nuts.com, and second, earlier today the post office dropped off two additional slotted spoons that I bought from Amazon because the pair that came last week are so wonderful they’re always in the dishwasher. My motto is, why bother rinsing them in the sink when you can just buy more?
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