Polyneuropathy

Medical science describes polyneuropathy as a gradual degeneration of peripheral nerves, starting at the ends. Inflammation processes are often involved in nerve degeneration. There are a number of causes for this. The disease is widespread among diabetics. Stress caused by toxic substances also appears to play an important role but it is not easy to prove this as the cause in individual cases. Dr. Remmers, a polyneuropathy specialist who worked as a neurologist in Gladbeck until he died 2006, had reported on the significant increase of this disease over the past years. In the case of most patients, the neurological findings are usually "polyneuropathy of undetermined origin". The symptoms expressed by polyneuropathy are pain, abnormal sensations, restless legs and the inability to walk or stand normally.

In typical cases, the affliction takes the following course: Usually gradual but continuously increasing from year to year, patients feel how their extremities die off. Beginning in the feet as a rule, sensations of numbness, tormenting abnormal sensations, pain and loss of feeling develop. Contact with the base is lost, walking becomes unsure, in the beginning on uneven ground, later everywhere. There, where earlier socks, shoes, the quality of a road cover, a meadow or the beach could be felt, is now just a numb, tormenting no-man's land. Along with feeling the ground, the feeling for your own weight and the reliability of being able to coordinate movements are lost as well. Finally, your own body is just a dead weight. It is manoeuvred through the world at great effort and the fear of falling is continuously present. Aids for walking become unavoidable, first a cane, then a wheeled walker and finally a wheel chair.

Throughout the years, the loss of feeling creeps up the legs and sooner or later hands and arms are also afflicted, finer work with your hands becomes difficult, closing buttons becomes impossible and ultimately it is not even possible to eat with a fork and knife. A common concomitant symptom is restless legs.