Nerve injuries refer to the damaged nerves caused by too much pressure by stretching or by a cut. It can affect your brain's ability to communicate with your muscles and organs. The nerves also may be damaged as a result of other health conditions that affect the nerves, such as diabetes or Guillain-Barre syndrome.
The signs and symptoms of nerve injuries can be different depending on the nerve that is injured, the type of injury, and the severity of the injury. Common signs and symptoms may include:
- Numbness - Some nerves only transmit sensation. Therefore, a nerve injury to these nerves would cause some amount of numbness.
- Weakness - In addition to sensory nerves, some nerves give you the ability to move, and other nerves do both of these things. Injury to nerves that carry motor signals causes some amount of weakness.
- Pain - This is frequently a symptom after a nerve injury. The pain present after a nerve injury can be anywhere along the course of the nerve, but it is typically at the injury site.
Nerve injury symptoms may be intermittent if the injury repeats itself; or they may be constant if the injury is severe enough. There are many other signs of nerve injury: muscles that get smaller, color change in the skin, and changes to the amount of sweat in certain areas.
