Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy: Improve Diabetes Nerve Pain

Low–impact exercises seem to be useful and well-tolerated by many people with diabetes. Exercises such as swimming, water aerobics, yoga, or tai chi are usually good choices. These exercises may also help you improve balance and relaxation skills. High-impact exercises may actually make symptoms such as peripheral neuropathy worse or cause damage that you are not easily able to detect because of peripheral neuropathy.

Start Slow to Overcome Fear

For many people with diabetes and peripheral neuropathy, a regular exercise program is something they haven’t done in a while. You need to begin to exercise, but begin slowly and gradually over days and weeks. You can slowly improve so you can exercise about 30 minutes a day, five times a week. The key for beginning an exercise program is to go slowly and improve by making small advances over long periods of time.

Working on Balance

With peripheral neuropathy, sometimes balancing yourself is difficult. Balancing can be improved slowly by doing some simple exercises. For example, you can practice getting out of a chair slowly by using your arms to help steady yourself. This exercise can be easily repeated several times during the day and it can build confidence and show you have the ability to do simple tasks without asking others for help. Improved balance may help you to take another step forward in your exercise program.
Balance on One Leg
Increasing the difficulty of certain exercise tasks can result in very good benefits for those with peripheral neuropathy caused by diabetes. One such task is attempting to balance on one leg. Before trying this task, you should be next to a stable object in case balance falters. Attempting to do balance on each leg for 30 seconds without holding on to a stationary object is a reasonable goal. This can help your confidence, strength, and balance.

Walk a Tight Rope