There is currently no cure for diabetic neuropathy. When you have it, treatment is about keeping the disease from getting worse. Good control of diabetes over time is the key to treating neuropathy. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight is a good start.

To help control your diabetes, exercise and eat food that is good for you. Controlling diabetes means maintaining blood sugar levels within the target range-near normal hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels. This will do more to help diabetic neuropathy than anything else.

For more information on good diabetes control, see the topics Type 1 Diabetes: Living With the Disease or Type 2 Diabetes: Living With the Disease.

Initial treatment

Treatment for diabetic neuropathy depends on your symptoms and the type of neuropathy that you have. Generally, treatment focuses on reducing current symptoms and preventing the condition from worsening by keeping your blood sugar level within a narrow target range-hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels near normal. You can keep your blood sugar levels within the target range by taking your insulin or oral diabetes medicine as prescribed, checking your blood sugar level getting worse, following your diet for diabetes, exercising, and seeing your health professional regularly. For more information, see the topics Type 1 Diabetes: Living With the Disease or Type 2 Diabetes: Living With the Disease.

In addition, it is important to properly care for your feet when you have diabetic neuropathy. This condition may cause a loss of feeling in your feet. It is possible for a sore or other foot problem to go unnoticed. Without proper foot care, an untreated foot sore can lead to a serious infection or possibly amputation.³ For more information, see:

Foot care for people with diabetes.

It is also wise to maintain healthy habits such as seeing your doctor regularly, controlling your blood pressure, eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, not smoking, and limiting your alcohol use to no more than 2 drinks a day for men or 1 drink a day for women. Additional treatment depends on the specific type of diabetic neuropathy that you have along with your current symptoms.

Many people with peripheral neuropathy have mild to severe pain in specific parts of their bodies. Talk with your health professional about treatment that can reduce your pain and improve your physical functioning, mood, and mental well-being. These treatments may include:

• Medicines such as pain relievers or creams to relieve pain. Prescription medicines often used to reduce pain from diabetic neuropathy may include medicines that are more commonly used to treat depression, such as tricyclic antidepressants and the antidepressant duloxetine hydrochloride, and medicines that control seizures, such as pregabalin and gabapentin. These medicines may be tried to reduce your pain even though you do not have depression or seizures.
• Complementary therapies such as acupuncture. Acupuncture has not been well studied as a treatment for diabetic neuropathy. But some studies show that it may help with pain.
• Physical therapy such as exercises, stretching, and massage. If you are told to use heat or ice, be careful. Neuropathy can make it hard for you to feel changes in temperature.
• Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), which is a type of therapy that attempts to reduce pain by applying brief pulses of electricity to nerve endings in the skin.