How many years does one have to be a heavy drinker or alcoholic before alcohol toxicity causes neuropathy? Can a younger person with little history of alcohol abuse get nerve damage from a heavy alcohol binge? The process by which alcoholism damages nerves is a slow one. It typically takes at least five, but usually ten to 20 years of heavy alcohol abuse before the first symptoms of alcoholic neuropathy will be apparent. About 50% of men who drink one alcoholic beverage or more daily for 20 years will experience signs of alcoholic neuropathy. Can binge drinking cause alcoholic neuropathy? Merely binge drinking for a few weeks or even months is not nearly enough to cause alcoholic neuropathy. That is, unless you have previously been an alcoholic for a decade or more. If that’s the case, a heavy alcohol binge can cause a sudden onset of the painful symptoms of neuropathy. For long-term alcoholics, a […]

How many years of heavy drinking does it typically take before the first symptoms of alcoholic neuropathy appear? Are older people more likely to suffer from it than young adults? And what age groups are most at risk? How much alcohol abuse is needed to cause alcoholic neuropathy? The process by which alcoholism damages nerves is a slow one, occurring over a long period of time. It typically takes at least five, but usually ten years of heavy alcohol abuse to get to the point where the first symptoms of neuropathy will be felt. Binge drinking for a few weeks or even months is not nearly enough to cause alcoholic neuropathy.  So if you have not been an alcoholic for nearly a decade, then the symptoms you are feeling are most likely not caused by alcoholic neuropathy. The first sign of alcoholic neuropathy is usually an intense, prickly, tingly, and numb feeling in […]

Peripheral neuropathy caused by long-term alcohol abuse is a horrible form of suffering for those who must endure it.  The pain, numbness, and weakness in the affected areas can be debilitating and severely lower a person’s quality of life. However, there can be comfort taken in the fact that many cases of alcoholic neuropathy may be successfully reversed if proper treatment is performed.  The patient must be determined to change his lifestyle and remove the destructive factors from his life that so damaged his nerves. Successful healing of the nerves is also dependent on the extent of the damage and the progression of the disease already incurred.  Nerve cells do have a limited capacity to regenerate themselves, but dead or severely damaged nerves will not respond to therapy. More often than not, however, a patient who is diligent with his treatment will experience a significant improvement in his symptoms over a […]

Peripheral neuropathy is known to be caused by excessive alcohol consumption over a long period of time, usually a decade or more.  The reasons for this are still debated, but there are several specific causes that are suspected by researchers. Long-term alcohol abuse can damage the myelin sheath of peripheral neurons, which disrupts their functioning and interrupts transmission of nerve signals from the peripheral to the central nervous system. This leads to the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy which are “phantom” sensations of tingling and burning and numbness in the body’s extremities.  These feelings are first noticed usually in the feet because the nerves are farthest from the central nervous system there, and then usually progress to the hands. If consumption of alcohol is not ceased, the nerve damage will spread to the core of the body and affect the autonomic nervous system which can lead to organ failure and sexual […]

One of the lesser-known causes of peripheral neuropathy is a chronic deficiency of the B vitamins and vitamin B12 specifically. B12 is vital to the proper functioning of nerve endings and synapses which transmit electrical signals, which we interpret as feeling, from all parts of our body to her brain. Because the feet and hands are farthest from the brain, they are the most likely locations of the body to show symptoms of neuropathy first. Generally, a short-term deficiency of the vitamin will not be sufficient cause symptoms of neuropathy, but the deficiency must be chronic and last over a period of time. The most common symptoms associated are tingling or numbness in the extremities, most commonly the feet but also sometimes in the hands. Because  B12 is a water-soluble vitamin, it cannot be stored inside the fat tissues of the body, meaning that it must be replenished more frequently […]