| glenntaj |
06-13-2007 06:18 AM |
And--
--we're considerably more than a dozen, even on this board.
It's estimated that in the US alone, some 20 million people hae some degree of peripheral neuropathy. The largest fraction, perhaps a quarter, have it secondary to diabetes, but that is certainly not the only cause. Peripheral neuropathy is common among athletes (compressive forces due to injury), among those suffering autoimmune condtions, and among those who have malignancies (both from the disease itself and the many treatments). I suspect that the number who suffer with it from unidentified toxic exposures is growing as well. And, there are numerous genetic errors that produce neuropathies.
What may be most important is to get the public's awareness of this to the forefront. It can be done--look at what is happening to the awareness surrounding celiac (another cause of neuropathy) in the last five years. The question--how to get the mainstream medical press (and others) to concentrate on neuropathy as a disease in itself, not just as a concommitant effect of other conditions? As I'm sure many here will agree, sometimes the neuropathy is the presenting symptom, but it's often worse to suffer through than the "causitive" condition--especially when others can't see it, and think you "look fine". And--there is still a huge cohort of "idiopathic" sufferers.
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