Sleep Apnea and Kidney Disease
Sleep apnea, snoring, and kidney disease are more closely linked than most people realize. How exactly do they link together and what can be done to treat both sleep apnea and kidney disease?
Patients suffering from kidney disease will often find themselves in a lot of pain. As a consequence, you want to find all the possible pain relief methods and medications to deal with these feelings.
One potential option is neural therapy, which has grown in popularity over the years. Naturally, you might be unaware of what this is or how it works. Therefore, this guide will tell you everything you need to know about the topic. We’ll explain what it is, how it works, and how it may benefit people with kidney disease.
The technical definition of neural therapy is that it is a regulatory and system-resetting therapy in which local anesthetics are injected into defined regions of the body. As such, it is often used to treat the symptoms of chronic pain in specific parts of the human body. One of the key benefits of neural therapy is that it doesn’t present some of the same side effects that more traditional pain management techniques exhibit.
For instance, if you were to take any prescription pain medication, you will find a series of potential side effects with long-term use. This could include digestive system issues, and so on.
As mentioned, local anesthesia is injected, which will likely be procaine or lidocaine.
Neural therapy is based on the function of your autonomic nervous system (ANS). This is the part of your nervous system that handles all of the involuntary functions within the body. When the ANS becomes damaged or injured, all sorts of issues can present themselves. For example, people suffering from chronic pain are believed to have damaged autonomic nervous systems. The basic principle of this therapy is that it heals the ANS and can make the pain go away.
The process begins with concentrated injections in specific areas of the body. This can be nerve clusters, scars, trigger points, or acupuncture sites. The anesthetic is then injected and it prevents the area of the body from sending pain signals to the ANS. With multiple injections, the pain can slowly fade away.
In recent times, neural therapy has been recommended as a treatment option for patients with kidney failure. However, it is important to note that it is not something that can cure or improve kidney disease. Instead, this therapy is good at treating some of the common side effects and complications of chronic kidney disease.
Neuropathy is a condition that means nerves have been damaged or aren’t functioning properly in the body. It will usually result in tingling or numbness within the affected area. Sadly, peripheral neuropathy is rated as the most common neurological complication of kidney disease. Studies report that 90% of patients on kidney dialysis machines suffer from this issue.
Thus, neural therapy is a beneficial treatment option to help handle this side effect. Because of the way the injections work, it can help to promote the healing of the ANS, correcting nerve problems in the affected area. There is evidence to suggest that neural injections are also useful in treating neurodegenerative diseases.
It is no secret that chronic pain is extremely common in kidney disease patients. In fact, it is largely attributed as the most common and distressing symptom patients will experience. The problem with chronic pain is that it can lead to a lower standard of life. Patients struggle to do daily tasks or live life to the fullest because the pain is unbearable.
As a result, a treatment like neural therapy can be seen as highly advantageous. Since its inception in Germany, this therapy has specifically been used for pain management. Some doctors have even witnessed instances when one neural injection has been enough to cure someone’s chronic pain.
However, multiple injections are usually recommended, and the science behind them helps to repair the ANS and prevent your body from sending pain signals from the affected area. In patients with kidney disease, this can go a very long way to dealing with one of the worst symptoms.
Neuropathy and chronic pain are both big issues, but you could argue there are other ways of treating them. Certainly, most people with chronic pain are prescribed narcotics - opioids - or NSAIDs to treat the pain.
Unfortunately, for people with kidney disease, neither of these two options is ideal. There are negative links between long-term NSAID use and kidney disease. In short, repeatedly using this medication as a form of pain management can lead to a faster deterioration of the kidneys. While it may cure the pain, it will be detrimental to treating kidney disease itself.
Similarly, caution should be exercised when prescribing opioids as pain management relief for kidney disease patients. History suggests that these drugs can lead to increased opioid sensitivity. As a result, this means that the drugs start having less and less of an effect on the patient, leading to increased doses that become dangerous.
On the other hand, neural therapy does not have any side effects and is much safer than these drugs. This is what makes them such an effective form of pain management for patients with kidney failure. It’s a brilliant way of dealing with neuropathy and chronic pain without worrying about the side effects of potentially dangerous drugs.
If you are suffering from kidney disease and need help dealing with some of the side effects, neural therapy could be right for you. Of course, each patient is different and can react differently to certain procedures. However, this is a good alternative treatment to traditional pain medication or surgery.
At Kidney360, we have kidney specialists that can help you understand all of the treatment options available to patients with kidney disease. Don’t hesitate to contact us today to schedule a consultation where we can discuss neural therapy and any other options.
