Burning-Neuropathic pain feels different to all other types of pain. It is often described as sharp, zonked, burning and electrocuting pain. Different symptoms such as numbness in the arms, hands, feet and especially the legs, webbing, loss of feeling generally accompanies the pain and sometimes chronic pain and burning can be felt. The severity of the pain and symptoms may increase at night. It may cause a never ending pain after a stroke or in diabetes patients. It may cause on and off pain in trigeminal neuralgia a sciatic pain.

Neuropathic pains are generally caused by the nervous system. Neuropathic pain in any section of the body may be caused by the peripheral nervous system, the central nervous system or the autonomic nervous system.

Neuropathic pain and neuralgia are pains that are caused due to various nerve injuries. These injuries may be due to trauma, systemic disease such as diabetes, a microbial disease or may cause neuralgia pains that have an unknown cause.

The most common causes of neuropathic pain:

– Inflammation
– Infections such as shingles
– Surgery
– Nerve pressure due to a tumour
– Pressure on the nerves around the spinal cord (such as slipped disc hernia)
– Problems in the back, hip or legs (such as sciatic pain)
– Facial nerve problems (Trigeminal neurology)
– Diabetes, thyroid diseases, anaemia (iron deficiency)
– Cancer chemotherapy
– Radiation treatment
– Nerve deformities due to age or genetics
– Brain problems such as strokes
– Multiple sclerosis
– Phantom pain after amputations.
– Diseases such as HIV or AIDS that affect the nerves with a virus.

Here are the types of neuropathic pain:

Allodynia: Pain caused due to triggers such as wind on the arm or bed sheets on the legs which do not commonly cause pain.

Hyperalgesia: Excessive amount of pain is felt in cases where only a small amount of pain is due. For example knocking the arm on the side of a cupboard may feel the same as touching a burning hot iron.

Dysesthesia: An uncomfortable pins and needle effect is felt that cannot be described as pain. For example it may feel like ones foot has swollen or like there are bugs walking all over their skin.

An X-Ray, blood tests and nerve sensor tests can be conducted to figure out the cause of the pain. The doctor may also send the patient to a neurologist, brain surgeon or a physical therapist for further tests and inspections.