Normal people regard paraesthesia as abnormal- but many affected persons never complain as they do not realize that the feeling of 'pins and needles' is 'abnormal'. This helps explain why many persons born with a sensory deficit, are not diagnosed until some major problem draws attention to the fact that the patient obviously does not have as much pain as expected. Polio usually only affects the motor nerves, not the sensory, so the Polio patient does not develop the complications caused by loss of sensory nerve function. Vascular lesions may by anoxia damage nerve function and produce bizarre symptoms including excessive pain perception i.e. hyperaesthesia. Some persons think Diabetes is the only cause of neuropathy, which often presents as diminished pain perception, but diabetes is certainly not the only cause of reduced pain perception.
Lead poisoning causes wrist drop - motor neuropathy.
If health education of parents and child commence early it is possible to minimize deformity and disability. It is often thought that CMT affects only motor nerves but there is often a sensory deficit that becomes a serious problem when the patient develops an abnormal gait, and then ulcers occur because of excess pressure on areas with reduced pain perception. These three boys are in a family in which 5 out of 13 children are affected with familial neuropathy. The middle boy has painless ulcers on his feet. The other boy had a complicated fracture of tibia into the knee and just kept walking as there was no pain.