LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Painful Diabetic Neuropathy

Vibration Plate Exercises, Painful Diabetic Neuropathy and Falls

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vibration plate exercises in diabetics
Vibration plate reviews on Amazon.com

Quite a mouthful in just the title alone.  There have been no shortage of studies on the benefits of vibration plate exercises lately, so I’ll keep this one short and to the point.

Now that we’ve had a higher-end whole body vibration unit in our office for 7 or 8 years now, I can certainly combine what I’ve seen in the office with what I’ve read in the medical literature.  There are a few situations where vibration plate exercises shine brightly, and balance and fall prevention top the list.  This is especially true when someone has a condition that will increase his or her risk of falling such as multiple sclerosis, advanced age, Parkinson’s disease or diabetes.  For those of you who have never been on a whole body vibration unit before, it’s hard to describe.  Truly a unique experience but the vast majority of patients who try it in our office like the ride.

The surprising benefits to patients who have used the vibration plate consistently range from increased balance to decreased tremors (Parkinsonian) and increased leg strength.  Research supports these findings and they make sense.  This particular article, like many others before it, bring together the benefits of fall prevention and pain improvement in diabetics who suffer from painful diabetic neuropathy.

It is a small study, but in just a single session of vibration plate exercises, these patients saw improvements in the Unilateral Stance Test, the Timed Up and Go Test as well as tibialis anterior muscle strength.  From a single session.

In case this sounds familiar, this is probably because I wrote a recent blog article (that can be found by clicking here) on balance in diabetic patients using vibration plate exercises.  This study upped the ante, looking at diabetics with painful diabetic neuropathy.

For those of you who don’t have a clinic nearby that offers vibration plate exercises, there are two options for you if you have a condition that whole body vibration is likely to help.

  1. You can check out some of the whole body vibration units at Amazon.com by clicking here.
  2. You can contact our office about ordering a unit from Ridge and Company.  We have had this unit in our office for patients to try and the results have been good for the price of the unit (around $1500).  Mention this blog post for a $100 discount when ordered through our office.

 

Vibration Plate Exercises: 2 Reasons It’s Critical for Diabetics

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vibration plate exercises and muscle mass
Vibration plate reviews on Amazon.com

As we age, many of us fear falling. I have heard plenty of horrifying stories of seniors who fell and were stuck somewhere in our around the house for hours until rescue.  The feeling of helplessness is not good.

This fear can be even worse for diabetics due to poor sensation as well as painful diabetic neuropathy.  In addition to a higher risk of falls, the potential damage from falling is greater in this group because of poor healing and ulcers that can result from any injuries sustained in the fall.

Just in case this scenario doesn’t sound scary enough, many of the medications used to treat painful diabetic neuropathy will actually further increase the risk of falls.  Think gabapentin (Neurontin), pregabalin (Lyrica) and most antidepressants and pain medications.  Pretty much covers all the drugs that diabetics use to control nerve pain.

Obviously, anything that can brighten the situation is a good thing.  But what if a natural and safe intervention can lower the risk of falls AND help with painful diabetic neuropathy??

Enter the vibration plate machine, also known as whole body vibration.  Our office purchased a higher end vibration plate machine way back in 2005, mainly because of this therapy’s positive track record on helping with bone density issues.  Since this time the research has expanded (although many clinics offering whole body vibration promote it for things it is not really that good for like weight loss).  Much of the research I have come across over the years can be found on our clinic’s whole body vibration page.

This particular study adds some depth to our previous understand of vibration plate exercises.  We already have seen that whole body vibration can lower the risk of falls (this article can be read by clicking here).

In this small study, researchers put diabetics on a whole body vibration exercise program 3 times per week for 12 weeks.  The results were pretty impressive:

  • Those in the control group had a worsening in balance (as measured by Center-of-Pressure, or COP, excursions) over the 12 week period with the eyes open.
  • The whole body vibration group?  Better balance even with their EYES CLOSED.  Pretty impressive.

So, to sum it up, not only is whole body vibration a safe treatment approach for almost all patients, but it:

  1. Lowers the risk of falls in diabetics by improving balance and
  2. Vibration plate exercises have been shown to lower the pain experienced by those with painful diabetic neuropathy.

For those of you who don’t have a clinic nearby that offers vibration plate exercises, there are two options for you if you have a condition that whole body vibration is likely to help.

  1. You can check out some of the whole body vibration units at Amazon.com by clicking here.
  2. You can contact our office about ordering a unit from Ridge and Company.  We have had this unit in our office for patients to try and the results have been good for the price of the unit.  Mention this blog post for a $100 discount when ordered through our office.

Good luck!

Neuropathy Support Formula: 2 More Vitamins for Neuropathy

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I recently covered the use of whole body vibration to improve painful diabetic neuropathy.  CoQ10 also has research behind it for preventing it in the first place.

I won’t go into how much diabetic neuropathy sucks, because if you deal with it, you already know.  Likewise, I will not go over how important it is to manage the prediabetic and diabetic spectrum to prevent diabetic neuropathy in the first place.  This was covered ad nauseum in the blog article referenced above.

In painful diabetic neuropathy, there is a problem with the way the nerves going into the legs and feet are behaving.  Given how much nutrition and vitamin supplements play a role in healthy nerve function, it would make sense that there are natural tools in the supplement toolbox that can be used for this condition.  I’ve already mentioned Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10).  Since CoQ10 is absolutely essential for the high-energy cells in your body (such as nerve, heart and muscle cells), CoQ10 supplementation can benefit diseases and conditions associated with these types of cells.

B12, also known as cobalamin, is vitally important for quite a few processes in your body.  Cell division, the formation of neurotransmitters and nerve cell function (vitamin B12 plays a role in the formation of the myelin sheath that protects your nerves).  One thing to be careful of with vitamin B12 for neuropathy, though, is to absolutely avoid the cyanocobalamin form, which is the most commonly used in supplements AND vitamin B12 injections.  I’ve covered this topic in more detail in a prior blog article that can be read by clicking here.  As an interesting note: The very common diabetic drug metformin is well known to deplete the body of vitamin B12 stores…

Alpha lipoic acid (sometimes referred to as thioctic acid) is another naturally occurring substance that can follow in the footsteps of CoQ10 because it is used in the generation of energy for every cell in our body.  As always, the high-energy cells like nerve cells need more energy and thus can benefit greatly from alpha lipoic acid in neuropathy.  Alpha lipoic acid has also been shown to protect the beta cells of the pancreas, thus protect from or helping with diabetes.

This particular study just highlights what we’ve already seen with these two supplements for foot neuropathy treatment in diabetes.  Here’s the details:

  • 17 different studies were evaluated.
  • The treatment lasted from 2-4 weeks.
  • The form of vitamin B12 used was methylcobalamin (the preferred form for the nerves) at 500-1,000 mcg (the study states “mg” but I’m thinking that’s a typo).
  • Alpha lipoic acid was used in the 300-600 mg range given via IV.
  • Both vitamins for neuropathy were effective at improving nerve function, but the combination of both was 47% stronger than either alone.

Not too shabby considering that there were NO adverse effects noted.

Overall, though, I think we’re beginning to see some pretty successful tools to be used in foot neuropathy treatment for diabetics, both supplemental and mechanical (whole body vibration).  Side note: our office uses a B12 lozenge with 2,000 mcg that I would compare to the injectable forms and is much simpler to use.

Add 36 Minutes of This Therapy To Your Neuropathy Support Formula

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whole body vibration therapy and diabetic neuropathy
Whole body vibration therapy and diabetic neuropathy

Diabetic neuropathy is not fun. I recall a patient in tears; he didn’t want to get out of bed because he knew standing on his feet would hurt, but staying in bed hurt.

Once things get to this point, there are few options for the patient with painful diabetic neuropathy.  Mainstream medicine will usually throw medications at the problem, such as Neurontin (gabapentin) or Lyrica.

Diabetic neuropathy is a process that begins long, long before the pain starts.  Frankly, it starts even before the diabetic diagnosis.  You see, every point along the “diabetic spectrum” is dangerous for you.  That means being prediabetic is very bad for your health.  But regular readings of the Rantings already know this.  If you need a little brushing up, you can read prior blog articles by clicking here.

Basically, when the body begins to poorly manage blood sugar, one of the first tissues affected are the nerves.  Your nerves require a tremendous amount of energy to function and the diabetic spectrum affects the way that cells use glucose for energy. Yes–this means that your painful diabetic neuropathy begin decades ago.  Decades. All of this means that doing everything to manage your blood sugar is of the utmost importance.

Certain supplements, like Coenzyme Q10, have been shown to delay onset of diabetic neuropathy (you can read about this in a previous blog article that can be found by clicking here). This applies before the painful neuropathy starts as well as after you begin to experience symptoms.

So what can you do? This particular article gives us some information about an additional tool to use for painful diabetic neuropathy. Our office has had a whole body vibration unit for quite a few years now.  We originally purchased the unit for its benefits on bone density, but quickly realized that patients who had circulation issues, leg pain or diabetic neuropathy. As a matter of fact, one of the common side effects found with whole body vibration is an itching redness of the legs.  This is because of the increased blood flow.  Increased blood flow means more nutrients to the nerves in your feet.  More nutrients to the nerves in your feet can help with the pain of diabetic neuropathy.

So what did researchers find in this small study?

  1. Sessions were 3 times per week for 4 weeks.
  2. Treatment time was 3 minutes.
  3. Scores on the VAS and the Neuropathic pain scale (NPS) were improved in this short period of time.

So basically, a mere 36 minutes of vibration therapy was enough to make significant changes to the pain levels in these patients.  Pretty impressive.

By the way, that patient I described at the beginning of this article?  We used our laser unit and he spent some time on whole body vibration.  With a single treatment session, his pain was vastly improved.