peripheral neuropathy is a frustrating painful sometimes disabling condition that affects millions of people across the world now if you're one of those people I promise you you need to watch this video until the very end because it's going to help you if there is a chance to slow down the progression of your neuropathy to actually stop the progression to reverse the progression or even to completely reverse your neuropathy the answer is contained in this video I'm dr. ken berry a family physician with 20 years of clinical experience and this video is going to help you with your peripheral neuropathy peripheral neuropathy is so pervasive I guarantee you several of your friends and family members already suffer from it so please consider sharing this video on your social media on your Twitter your Instagram your Facebook because watching this video might help someone understand the root causes of peripheral neuropathy and with that knowledge they can then begin to slow down the progression to reverse it or even to cure it so first let's get out of the way things that are definitely not going to help okay because people spend money every day on products that are promoted to help peripheral neuropathy and I'm going to give you the short list of stuff you can save your money there are wasted money you don't need to buy them ever because they don't agree even address the root cause of the neuropathy they're gonna waste your money and they're not going to fix anything anything that you rub on externally so if you have peripheral neuropathy in your feet toes legs and someone's selling a cream a salve a lotion a balm that you rub on your skin and this somehow is supposed to help the peripheral neuropathy that's foolishness that's a waste of money that's never going to help I've actually seen lauded doctors and and experts out there say that you should decrease your salt intake or you should decrease your saturated fat intake not only is there no research to back this up but actually against goes against the actual neurological physiology in the human body your nerves need salt and they are made of fat so these two recommendations are foolishness some people say Oh taking this certain multivitamin or this certain vitamin complex is going to cure your neuropathy never does that work it might help a tiny bit if you have a vitamin or mineral deficiency but if you don't have one of those deficiencies that's not going to help at all you'll see nerve support formula out there that come in capsules and pills and maybe even shakes and powders this is another complete and utter waste of money you don't need any of these things that I talked about above they they're not going to help your peripheral neuropathy at all there are a few prescription medications that will help the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy the burning the itching the aching the pain the numbness but they no way addressed the root cause and that each one of these has a long list not of possible side-effects but of probable side effects you're going to have side effects if you take one of these medications they include lyrica neurontin amitriptyline and then tegretol some of these are medications most of these are medications for either seizure disorders or for depression or mood disorders and so they will knock the edge off of your symptoms but in no way will they cure reverse or slow down the progression of your neuropathy now let's go through the list of things that are known to cause peripheral neuropathy and I'm going to start first with the the least likely okay these are the one in a thousand or one in a hundred things that might be causing some of your neuropathy or in the very rare individual might be causing the majority of the neuropathy but these are the very rarest of causes okay and I'm not saying all these things are super rare I'm just saying they're probably not what's causing your peripheral neuropathy they include alcoholism if you drink alcohol for too many years amyloidosis if you're taking chemotherapy that can lead to neuropathy if you have toxic levels of heavy metals that can lead to neuropathy porphyria's discs autumn atonia a b12 deficiency absolute we can caused a peripheral neuropathy idiopathic polyneuropathy sand you may know from other videos on this channel that idiopathic means we don't know what the hell's causing it but at least they can put a diagnosis on it paraneoplastic syndrome's so if you have cancer a specific location in your body that can lead to some peripheral neuropathies lyme disease is a rare but known cause of peripheral neuropathies sarcoidosis and then small vessel vasculitis any of these things can lead to peripheral neuropathy now let's talk about the most common causes and these are the ones you want to focus on because probably 90% of peripheral neuropathy in the world is caused by one of these things okay and they really boil down to two to two different things which I'll get into after I name this list so diabetes absolutely a huge cause of neuropathy and hyperglycemia so and then pre-diabetes so years before you develop type 2 diabetes when you're in the very earliest stages of pre-diabetes you can be developing neuropathy and in fact that's how many people are diagnosed with type-2 diabetes they go to the doctor and say doc my my feet are burning and I don't know why so that can absolutely cause it chronic hyperinsulinemia which is a part of pre-diabetes and also a part of the next one which is metabolic syndrome chronic inappropriate inflammation so just chronic inflammation caused by either your diet or something else entering your system that leads to chronic inappropriate inflammation that inflammation can attack your small nerve endings in your feet toes legs hands and arms and other parts of your body autoimmune conditions and so if you're amused consist as a system is strong but confused about where the boundary between you and not you begins then your immune system can actually start to attack your nerve endings so the the hyperglycemia that comes from type one diabetes type 2 these prediabetes and then hyperinsulinemia that comes years before even pre-diabetes starts the hyperglycemia is the problem because this chronically high blood sugar or multiple spikes of high blood sugar every every time you eat an inappropriate meal for you actually glycans the proteins on the myelin sheath of the little nerves out in your periphery and the longer a nerve is the more likely it is to be affected and so when you gleich ate your myelin sheath then your immune system comes along your macrophages and they start to say hey this doesn't look right there shouldn't be a glycated protein right here and so they start to phagocytize that or engulf it and actually destroy your nerve ending and so you've got the perfect storm of hyperglycemia leading to glycation and then your immune system which is confused because there's a weird glycation on a protein that shouldn't be there your immune system actually starts to attack that again with chronic inappropriate inflammation that's the second big arm of this you actually will start to have inflammation around the arteries because your immune system is confused by all this inflammation everywhere all the time every day so it starts to attack parts of you that it shouldn't and in some people this manifest as Hashimoto's thyroiditis and some people this manifest as lupus or Sjogren's or all the other autoimmune conditions type 1 diabetes with the beta cells in the pancreas but in some people your immune system starts to attack your small nerves out of the periphery of your body in your legs and in your arms and that destroys the cell and then there and so you may have heard of phantom limb pain in the past so if someone gets an arm or leg cut off in a trauma or cut off because they had severe uncontrolled diabetes they can actually have pain phantom pain out in that foot that's no longer there and so we know from this example that nerve pain can often be from the absence of a signal because your nerves in your smallest toe to your biggest toe to your leg they're always communicating by and forthwith your brain basically sending the okay signal back and forth and so if your brain is not getting an okay signal from your toe because either hyperglycemia or chronic inappropriate inflammation in the immune response has destroyed that nerve at some point your body manifests that is pain even though there's nothing technically wrong with an amputated foot the foot is not can't be giving you pain it no longer is this you're still getting a pain signal and all this works together to lead to peripheral neuropathy now let's talk about the testing that you need and so 90% of the testing your needs going to be right up top in this list and then I'm going to talk about the the less common and the more esoteric causes so you right off the bat you need a hemoglobin a1c you need AC peptide you need both of these checked immediately to see what your glycemic situation is right to see what your pre-diabetes your hyperglycemia your type-2 diabetes where are you at and then you can start to reverse that you need a complete metabolic panel you need it your analysis you need a CBC with differential you need a sed rate and a CRP you need a vitamin b12 level check because that's one of the things that can lead to either peripheral neuropathy or worsening of your peripheral neuropathy caused by some other costs you need a complete thyroid panel and I talked about all the testing that this entails on other videos on this channel if you just search dr. Barry thyroid on youtube you should find it you also need a GG team a hepatitis panel as well sometimes people with chronic hepatitis that's never been diagnosed the way they're diagnosed as they go to the doctor complaining of burning in their feet and toes and legs and that's how the hepatitis is discovered you need a VDRL test which is a test for syphilis syphilis is the great imitator it can present with virtually any symptom whatsoever peripheral neuropathy being one of those you need a heavy-metal testing done and there's usually two panels of a head of a heavy-metal testing so ask your healthcare provider for both heavy metal panels so that you catch any toxicity's you may have and then outside of the lab we can you can succumb to electro diagnostic studies and even nerve biopsies and skin biopsies looking at the small nerve fibers in those biopsies you probably won't make it all the way down the list you'll probably find the reason for your peripheral neuropathy up very high on this list but if your doctor just can't find the cause then you may keep going down this list until you've hit the Grand Slam of having all these tests done so after all that what does actually work what does actually help peripheral neuropathy and there are multiple studies that show this I've got links to all the research that I used in the creation of this video down in the show notes below I don't want you to ever blindly believe me or anyone else I want you to check it out for yourself so here are the things that absolutely do help the most and I'm going to start with the least likely to help and I'm going to talk about the things that are going to help an eighty or ninety percent of the people with peripheral neuropathy so making sure that either in your diet or in a supplement you're getting an excellent source of all the B vitamins absolutely vital okay you've got to have that for proper nerve function making sure that you're getting enough magnesium and potassium either in your diet or a supplement or both is vital making sure you're getting enough vitamin D and if you're going to take a vitamin D supplements you want to use vitamin d3 not vitamin d2 and then making sure you're getting plenty of omega-3 fatty acids preferably in your diet but if you must take an omega-3 fatty acid capsule that's your choice but I've actually I actually have videos on this channel about good diet sources of all of these things that you can watch because I'd much rather you eat real food and get your omega-3s and your vitamin D and your potassium and magnesium then I would you just take a supplement and ignore your diet now let's talk about the two things that are absolutely going to slow down reverse or completely cure peripheral neuropathy in the majority of people now there will be exceptions if you have one of the weird causes right that I talked about earlier but 480 or 90% of the people you're having hyperglycemia having chronic inappropriate inflammation and having a confused immune system those are the three major causes of at least the majority of your peripheral neuropathy pain and so diet you absolutely need to to slowly or quickly depending on how severe your symptoms are transform your diet from whatever you're eating now to a very low carbohydrate diet you need to get all the sugar both added and natural out of your diet because that spikes your blood sugar you need to get all the grains out of your diet wheat rice oats corn and all the rest of the grains because they break down immediately into sugar which spikes your blood sugar remember hyperglycemia you you know and so if you're eating low carb that's fine with me if you're eating a keto diet that's going to work too if you're eating a carnivore diet that's going to work too so your diet is that's really the most important thing you can change to help lessen your symptoms of peripheral neuropathy and then fasting if you have moderate to severe peripheral neuropathy symptoms you absolutely as quick as you can you need to ramp up your daily fasting from just the eight hours that you fast while you're asleep you need to quickly ramp that up to a 14 to a 20 hour a day fast when you get up to 14 hours a day and you do that for a while you're going to start to notice an improvement the the higher up you're able to ramp it 16 18 or 20 hours you're going to notice improvement quicker now keep in mind nerves grow very slowly nerves regrow very slowly so with hyperglycemia is cause glycation and then cause your phagocytes to come in and destroy a tiny nerve ending in your toe or your foot and you're having peripheral neuropathy pain they're going low-carb keto carnivores not going to fix that overnight it's going to take weeks or months for that nerve to regrow and find its other end that it lost because it was interrupted so don't expect overnight results that's not how the human body works when it comes to nerve physiology nerves regrow very very slowly it may take several months but if suffer from severe peripheral neuropathy I don't have to tell you that if anything makes it better it's worth waiting a while to get that improvement I've actually have had contact with patients in the past who have committed suicide because their peripheral neuropathy was so severe and so disabling I try to post at least three new videos on this channel every week so please consider clicking the subscribe button and the little Bell button right beside it so that every time I post a new and you'll be one of the very first people to know this is doctor Barry I'll see you next time