Here's how diabetes causes a decline in neurological functioning

Diabetes, you know, is a systemic disease. It is a metabolic disorder that affects all the systems in the body, especially the nervous system. It is mostly affected in two ways. Firstly, Cerebellar vascular system gets affected by reducing the blood supply to the brain. It results in blockages of blood vessels that supply blood to the brain, triggering brain strokes.

Dr. Anu Gaikwad, MD Medicine, Physician Diabetologist & HOD of Geriatric Care Medicine, DPU Private Super Speciality Hospital, Pimpri, Pune says, “Sometimes, blood vessels get ruptured which results in intracanal bleeding. The peripheral nervous system gets affected and results in a tingling sensation, numbness and heaviness in the lower limbs and hands. Patients stop getting sensations in lower limbs and recurrent burns and trauma and that causes ulceration as the wound doesn’t heal”.

Diabetic patients are prone to silent heart attacks due to autonomic affection of the nerves. Other than this, the GI nervous system is also affected and triggers gastric issues, nausea and vomiting. Diabetes also results in sexual dysfunction that also doubles up as a psychological concern. Recurrent infections are also caused by diabetes because of the nervous system (central and peripheral). In any diabetic patient, the whole aim is that they must not get these complications. So to avoid these complications, it is required to do regular diabetic profiles.

It is important for the patients to keep the aforementioned health complications at bay. An effective way to do this is to conduct regular diabetic profiles. One can opt for biospeciometry for legs and feet as it provides vibration testing, a procedure that helps to check sensation by using cotton and wool. These tests can be done to check if the nervous system is being affected or not.

In order to prevent stroke, one needs to do regular lipid profile check-ups and keep a regular check on the blood vessels. One can also do a brain MRI through which complications can be detected at an early stage, if any. Treating Diabetic neuropathy is a difficult task. The first aim is to make sure the patient doesn’t reach that level where diabetes leads to neurological complications in the first place.