Your nerves are one of your body’s most complicated components, and they work flawlessly to help you move and feel — when they’re healthy.
Traumatic nerve pain is a common pain condition that affects upward of 50% of individuals who experience pain after an injury. Unfortunately, many don’t realize that nerve damage is the source of their symptoms.
That’s why Stephen Barrett, DPM, and Sequioa DuCasse, DPM, at US Neuropathy Centers want you to be informed about what’s causing your pain.
You have nerves covering virtually every square inch of your body. Without them, it would be impossible to detect and react to anything in your world. You have three main types of nerves:
Autonomic nerves control your involuntary actions, such as breathing and heart rate. Your motor nerves control your movements. Sensory nerves enable you to feel and respond to stimuli.
These three types of nerves are what make up your peripheral nervous system, which branches off of your central nervous system (your brain and spinal cord). It’s here in your vast, wide-reaching peripheral nervous system that traumatic nerve pain occurs most often.
Traumatic nerve pain typically stems from a violent event — such as an auto accident, sports collision, or major fall — that results in nerve damage or compression. Injury to your peripheral nervous system can happen through:
Depending on the location and the severity of your injury, you may experience extreme sensitivity to touch, musculoskeletal pain, numbness, and/or tingling. In the worst cases, you may lose strength or develop paralysis in the muscles affected by the nerve damage.
Though nerve damage can be complicated, the way we diagnose traumatic nerve pain is relatively straightforward. With routine imaging tests, such as MRIs and electromyography (EMG) nerve conduction studies, we can easily detect where the damage is.
We may also recommend a neurological exam to thoroughly understand your situation.
Once we’ve determined where and how bad your nerve damage is, we start creating your customized treatment plan. We offer a variety of treatment options, ranging from prescription medication to surgery, as well as the following advanced treatments.
Sometimes, your nerves simply need help communicating after they’ve been damaged. Electrical nerve stimulation can help. These treatments deliver electrical signals that disrupt or block pain signals traveling to your brain.
With MLS laser therapy, we quickly and noninvasively reduce inflammation pressing on your nerves by delivering wavelengths of laser energy into the damaged areas of your body.
TMS treatments use magnetic fields similar to those produced during an MRI to target specific nerves in your brain that are responding to false pain signals from your peripheral nervous system.
In addition to these advanced treatments, we may also recommend other therapies, including:
All of these work to target the underlying cause of your traumatic nerve pain while also supporting your overall health.
Are you tired of living under the weight of nerve pain? Don’t wait another day. Call or click today to make an appointment at our Marietta, Georgia, office in the greater Atlanta area.
