Neuropathy is a complicated condition due to many causes, making it difficult to treat.
A new study presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting this year, however, found a simple solution.
There is one pleasant thing everyone can do to drastically improve neuropathy pain, and you’re likely already doing this—just do more of it.
It’s not obvious why poor sleep can worsen the pain experienced by neuropathy patients, but that is precisely what some studies have found.
The better you sleep, the less pain you will feel from nerve damage.
In response, the authors of this study wanted to understand the factors that affect sleep and how social influences might impact the health of people with peripheral neuropathy.
They studied 24 people diagnosed with this nerve condition. To gather their data, they used several well-known scales to measure sleep quality, pain, and stress levels.
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1. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index for sleep quality
2. Brief Pain Inventory for pain levels
3. Pain Catastrophizing Scale for pain perception
4. Michigan Neuropathy Screening Instrument for neuropathy symptoms
5. Perceived Stress Scale for stress levels
The participants included 18 women (75%) and their average age was around 67 years.
The study found some interesting connections between stress and sleep in these patients.
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1. Higher perceived stress was linked to worse sleep quality.
2. This connection remained strong even after considering age, sex, race, history of major depression, and the pain scale.
This means that participants who felt more stressed had poorer sleep.
Now, since poor sleep has previously been found to worsen neuropathy pain, this study implies that managing stress might be a key to better sleep and, in turn, better pain management.