Feet and hands numb?
It could be a medical condition and more serious than just sitting for too long.
Q: Dr. Scott, I suffer from peripheral neuropathy which makes my feet and hands numb. Are there any natural treatments?
A: Peripheral neuropathy (or PN) is the result of damage to the peripheral nerves in your body which transmit information between the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body. Depending upon the nerves that are damaged, PN can cause sensations of aggravating numbness and tingling, burning or stabbing pain, as well as muscle weakness and hyper-sensitivity to touch. It typically develops in the hands and feet of diabetics.
Regarding the treatment of this condition, primarily focus on better blood sugar control. Conventional medicine treats PN with tricyclic antidepressants (such as imipramine and amitriptyline) and anti-seizure medications (like gabapentin). However these medications do not treat the cause of the problem, and so patients do not really “get better” using them.
However, as a type-1 diabetic (49 years) and a chiropractor (20 years), I would like to offer another useful treatment strategy for this disturbing condition. Alpha-lipoic acid (or ALA) has been shown to improve glucose control in adults with either type-1 or type-2 (non-insulin -dependent) diabetes. Since almost all of the damaging effects associated with diabetes (heart attacks, strokes, blindness, kidney damage and neurological injury) are associated with free radicals and lipid peroxidation, we can see why ALA is so effective. ALA has been well studied in Europe and dramatically improves the symptoms of diabetic nerve damage.
I can attest, from personal experience, to the usefulness of ALA. Seven years ago, I experienced my first symptoms of neuropathy in my left great toe. On my yearly retina examination, I was told by my retinologist that my eyes appeared to be the eyes of a diabetic who’d had the disease for only 10 years. After the toe problem began to be noticed, I began taking 600 mg of ALA per day and within one week, the problem never recurred. At my next retina examination, the retinologist said that my eyes now appeared to be the eyes of a non-diabetic.
One of the major complications of diabetes is blindness, which occurs when free radicals damage the eye’s retina. Other retinal diseases (such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa) are also linked to this same type of injury. Experimental studies have shown that ALA can protect the retina against this danger, thereby preventing blindness. I remain on 200 mg of ALA per day for prevention.
For patients whom I suspect may need ALA, functional neurological nutritional testing is used because it appears to reflect the nervous system’s efferent response to the stimulation of the gustatory and olfactory nerve receptors by various substances. (Schmitt & Yanuck, 1999) In patients with neuropathy in the feet, specific muscles in the feet that are inhibited are given ALA orally; in the patients for whom ALA has been helpful, this will strengthen these inhibited muscles. In patients with neuropathy up to the knees or legs, muscles in these anatomical areas will be found inhibited and will strengthen quickly with just small dosages of ALA.
Alpha-lipoic acid also lowers blood sugar, removes mercury, arsenic and cadmium from the body (including the brain), increases the level of CoQ10 and glutathione in cells, and controls the expression of some genes. (Blaylock, 2002) Because of all these fantastic effects, ALA — when combined with other nutrients and cell protectors that you may need as discovered during your examination — greatly increases your potential to recover from your PN problems. Deficiencies in vitamins B12, B6 and B2 may contribute to PN, so it’s reasonable to supplement with these also.
Alpha-lipoic acid has no toxic side effects and is a natural compound found in the body. I have had quite a few type-2 diabetics who were able to reduce their medications after taking ALA. Using this substance, most insulin-dependent diabetics will be able to control their blood sugar with lower insulin requirements. The best results come when you follow the diabetic diet and correct as many of your patients other physical and metabolic problems as possible. For the type-2 diabetic, ALA is even more effective.
If a sufferer begins using ALA as soon as the diabetes is diagnosed, nerve damage can be prevented altogether. The amount used in most studies is 600 mg a day in divided doses, but it may take three months to produce full benefits. (Vallianou et al., 2009)
In my own clinical use of ALA, I frequently find that patients with neuropathy of the feet and hands (whether from diabetes or from other peripheral arterial diseases) get relief within just one week…and they remain improved.
Dr. Scott Cuthbert is the chief clinician at the Chiropractic Health Center in Pueblo, Colorado, as well as the author of two new textbooks and over 50 peer-reviewed research articles. PuebloChiropracticCenter.com.
