Neuropathy and alcohol

[ickihun]

I saw this and thought some people may want to discuss how Neuropathy and alcohol can be a negative approach to maintaining good diabetic control.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/961225

What do you think?

 

[JohnEGreen]

Well it was neuropathy that ulimately lead to my diagnosis via my neurologist I enjoy the odd glass of whisky and the even odder glass or two of wine I can't dismiss the idea as I was drinking alchohol prior to the onset of neuropathy and that may have played a part in developing neuropathy I dom't know.

But despite that I managed to bring down my sugars to normal levels and have reasonably managed blood sugar control since then though I still have the neuropathy and the alchohol.

 

[KennyA]

I saw this and thought some people may want to discuss how Neuropathy and alcohol can be a negative approach to maintaining good diabetic control.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/961225

What do you think?

Thanks for posting. The authors talk about "heavy drinking" but don't define it and also mention chronic drinking and alcoholism as causes of neuropathy. This level of drinking may not be what most of us have experience of. The other factor is that the study is based on an Italian population, and the Italian "safe drinking" weekly recommendations are (if I recall correctly) around twice those in the UK. Italy also uses larger "units" of alcohol than the UK.

It seems therefore largely aimed at clinical professionals - don't overlook alcoholism as a possible/likely contributor to neuropathy just because your patient has diabetes. It doesn't make me think there's anything I need to do about my alcohol intake.