When you have diabetes you are at the high risk of having your nerves damaged, often leading to autonomic neuropathy. Risk is greatest for people over 40 who've had the disease for more than 25 years and have difficulty controlling their blood sugar.
Autonomic neuropathy is typically a kind of peripheral neuropathy but one that only affects involuntary functions of the body such as blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, perspiration and other such processes. Autonomic neuropathy does not have any particular sign or symptom; rather it is the damage to the autonomic nerves, which has various symptoms. This nerve-related problem usually results in abnormal and decreased performance of one or perhaps more of the involuntary functions of the body as it disrupts signals transmitted between autonomic parts like the heart, sweat glands, blood vessels and the brain.
Autonomic neuropathy could be a complication caused by a large number of conditions and diseases or even as a side effect of some kind of treatment for diseases, which are completely unrelated to the nervous system. Some of the most common causes of this nerve damage are: untreated, chronic alcoholism, diabetes, injury to the nerves as a result of surgery or trauma, Abnormal protein buildup, which affects the nervous system and the body organs, Autoimmune Disease, a degenerative disorder called Multiple system atrophy which causes malfunction of some parts of the nervous system, and other illnesses which are chronic like HIV/AIDS or Pakistanis disease. |