What Causes Peripheral Neuropathy?
And What To Do About It
Have you noticed how many ads are on TV these days for neuropathy treatment centers? Everywhere you look, someone is talking about burning feet, numb toes, or tingling hands.
There is a reason for that. Peripheral neuropathy is on the rise. Part of it is because diabetes rates are climbing. Part of it is because we are living longer.
But here is a piece of the puzzle that gets overlooked. Even after ruling out the most common causes like diabetes and alcohol, about 30 percent of patients are left with no clear answer.
Doctors run every test, scratch their heads, and call it “idiopathic neuropathy.” That is just medical talk for “we do not know.”
In my experience, a huge chunk of those mystery cases are actually caused by gluten.
Most people think gluten sensitivity is just a stomach problem. Bloating, diarrhea, or belly pain. But here is the twist. Gluten does not always attack the gut. For many patients, it attacks the nervous system instead.
This is an autoimmune process called cross-reactivity. It is the same concept we talk about with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
I have seen patients with burning pain in their toes and unexplained neuropathy improve dramatically after cutting out gluten. Some of them had no digestive symptoms at all.
Gluten-related autoimmunity does not stop at peripheral neuropathy either. There are many neurological conditions that may be connected to gluten.
Another relatively new condition that may be linked is CIDP, which stands for Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy.
One of my golfing friends, who was also a patient, had CIDP. I suggested he go off gluten, and his symptoms basically resolved.
I have had patients who were told their neuropathy had no known cause. They tried a gluten-free diet for 30 days, and the symptoms improved. For them, the answer was not another pill. It was removing a trigger.
If you have been told your neuropathy is “idiopathic,” here is my challenge. Try a gluten-free diet for 30 days and see how your body responds.
And keep in mind, neuropathy can have more than one cause. Diabetes and gluten reactions can overlap. It does not have to be one or the other.
Authored by Gerard Guillory, MD
Gerard Guillory, MD, is a board-certified internist who practiced for nearly four decades with a focus on functional, root-cause medicine. He is the author of three books on irritable bowel syndrome and the founder of It’s My Health, where he and his team put current health news in context and help members understand the underlying causes of chronic symptoms.
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