Neuropathy Awareness

Recently, I was exposed to a medical condition known as Neuropathy when I attended the Neuropathy Awareness Briefing that was held by Neurobion, a brand packed with vitamin-B1, B6 and B12 to nourish your nerves or anyone at risk of vitamin B deficiency, created by Merck, a global pharmaceutical company.

Neuropathy affects people who are diabetic, the elderly, vegetarians (as the lack vitamin Bs), and people with unhealthy lifestyle such as smokers and drinkers. However, it can affect the rest of people like me and you as well.

What Is Neuropathy?

Neuropathy is a medical condition where the nerves are damaged by certain diseases or malfunction. When the nerves become damaged, they can't communicate well with the parts of the body that they are connected to.

Looking at the image below, you can see how the nerves in our body is connected to different parts of the body. 

Image credit: JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association)

Symptoms

Symptoms like the below are signs that your nerves are unhealthy:

1. 

Image Credit: Prevent Your Panic

2.  

Image Credit: Postcards

Pins and Needles

3. 

Image Credit: Deviantart (Peroni68)

Burning Pain

4.

Image Credit: Dr Mike Snyder

Prickling or Stabbing Pains

5.

Image Credit: F.H.FURR

Reduced ability to feel temperature (Hot and Cold)

6.

Image Credit: Ram Sonagara (LinkedIn)

Loss of Sensation

7. 

Image Credit: MS Symptoms

Muscle Weakness and Difficulty Walking

8.

Image Credit: Enki Village

Extreme Sensitivity to Touch

9. 

Image Credit: Pinterest

Lack of Coordination

10. 

Image Credit: Daniel Bell

Serious Foot Problem - Ulcers, Infections, Deformities, Bone and Joint Problems (Diabetic Neuropathy)

Many people tend to disregard the symptoms as lifestyle-related or stress or even when they think there is something wrong with their health, unhealthy nerves was never in the picture. 

By now, we already know that to be healthy, we need to maintain a healthy lifestyle and balanced diet, but what we don't know is, we need to also ensure that our nerves are healthy so it can continue working for our body.

During the briefing, Merck invited Professor Dr Goh Khean Jin, a consultant neurologist in University Malaya Medical Center to give an overview of neuropathic and Dr Mohamed Haniff Merican, general medical practitioner with Merican Dispensary to discuss with us about the definition of pain.

Professor Dr Goh mentioned that the nerves affect our every movements and feelings in our bodies, all the way down to our heartbeat, digestions and even breathing. By saying that, you would know that only with healthy nerves can we function as we are right now. If any of the nerves are damaged, we will lose our ability to feel sensations and even moving freely.

Dr Mohamed Haniff Merican tell us not to ignore our pain. We should always keep track of the pains we are feeling. These pains are your body telling you that something is wrong and you need to get it checked. Tell your doctor about the pain and they will determine whether if the pain is worth taking note of or not. Early detection to a nerve damage is always the best.

Tips for keeping nerve healthy

Just like how we do different things to keep our body healthy, there are also ways to provide proper nutrition to maintain and keep our nerves healthy.

Image Credit: Gym Membership Fees

Exercise Regularly

Image Credit: My Voice

Reduce alcohol intake and quit smoking

Image Credit: Med-Health

Maintain a healthy diet

Image Credit: Natural-Homeremedies

Avoid sitting or crossing legs for too long which may compress the nerves.

Image Credit: Better Digestion

Optimise your intake of vitamin B1, B6 and B12 as they are extremely important for healthy nerves. You can either get them from a variety of food source or supplements like Neurobion, which has a balanced formulation of all the vitamin Bs that was mentioned above.

Here's why Vitamin B are important. Vitamin B1 strengthens and helps to provide energy for the nerves, while Vitamin B6 is necessary for the proper transmission of the nerves impulses and lastly, Vitamin B12 regenerate and protects nerve cells from damage.

Last but not least, here are the very little picture I took that day.

From left: Dr Mohamed Haniff Merican, Professor Dr Goh Khean Jin, volunteer patient and Richard Lee, GM of Merck Health Division, Malaysia

 We were all then given a free neuropathy screening to check our nerves health.

Using the machine to check the sensitivity on the base of my foot

Marking down scores. I was so nervous.

Here's my score! If you were to look at my score and compare it to the graph on the right, I am actually still healthy *phew*

If you want to find out more about Merck, you can check their website out here.