Peripheral neuropathy

 

Peripheral neuropathy (PN) is damage or disease affecting nerves, which may impair sensation, movement, gland or organ function, or other aspects of health, depending on the type of nerve affected.

In conventional medical usage, the word neuropathy (neuro-, "nervous system" and -pathy, "disease of" without modifier usually means peripheral neuropathy.

Neuropathy affecting just one nerve is called "mononeuropathy" and neuropathy involving multiple nerves in roughly the same areas on both sides of the body is called "symmetrical polyneuropathy" or simply "polyneuropathy." When two or more (typically just a few, but sometimes many) separate nerves in disparate areas of the body are affected it is called "mononeuritis multiplex," "multifocal mononeuropathy" or "multiple mononeuropathy."

Peripheral neuropathy may be chronic (a long term condition where symptoms begin subtly and progress slowly) or acute (sudden onset, rapid progress and slow resolution).

 Motor nerves (that control muscles), sensory nerves, or autonomic nerves (that control automatic functions such as heart rate, body temperature and breathing), may be affected. More than one type of nerve may be affected at the same time. Peripheral neuropathies may be classified according to the type of nerve predominantly involved, or by the underlying cause. Where the cause is unknown it is described as idiopathic neuropathy.

There are multiple causes, however, this LINK takes you to the eHealthme web site which lists the 3500 or so pharmaceuticals that are known to cause Peripheral neuropathy.  The list is not anecdotal it was compiled from recognised Adverse Drug Reaction reports submitted to the FDA

Peripheral neuropathy  - its causes and the observations associated with it are treated in the more general section Nervous system diseases.