Dr Maxwell Adeyemi

The most common cause of a burning feeling in your feet is nerve damage, often related to diabetes, but there are other possible causes. The pain from burning feet can be intermittent or constant, and range from mild to severe. The feet may feel hot, tingling, prickling, or numb, and is often worse at night.

Causes

Diabetic neuropathy

Prolonged uncontrolled high blood sugar can gradually damage your blood vessels and nerves. High blood sugar reduces the transmission of signals from the nerves. This can affect sensation in various parts of the body, including the feet. High blood sugar also weakens the blood vessel walls that carry oxygen and nutrients to the nerves. The nerve damage can occur throughout your body.

The risk for neuropathy increases if you have obesity, high blood pressure, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. Peripheral neuropathy can cause a burning feeling in your feet. Less frequently, it can affect the arms and hands.

Small fibre neuropathy

Small fibre neuropathy is a painful neuropathy that often results in painful burning in the feet. There may also be a loss of feeling in the feet and short bursts of pain. It occurs as a result of a loss of the myelin sheath, which covers and protects nerve fibers.

More general symptoms can also occur, such as, fatigue, problems with thinking and focusing, headache, bone and muscle pain.

Risk factors include: exposure to toxins, including alcohol and some vaccines, infections, such as Lyme disease, HIV, and hepatitis C, immune system disorder such as rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

Alcohol use

People who consume a lot of alcohol are at risk of another type of nerve damage called alcoholic neuropathy. It can cause pain, tingling, and weakness in the feet, muscle weakness, problems with gait, burning pain and hypersensitivity to pain.

Charcot-Marie tooth disease.

This is an inherited nerve disease. It affects the nerves that control muscles. It's a progressive disease, meaning symptoms worsen over time.

Symptoms include weakness or paralysis in the feet and hands, difficulty lifting the foot, a high-stepped gait, there may be muscle atrophy, when the muscles lose mass, cramping pain can also occur, ranging from mild to severe.

Complex regional pain syndrome

Complex regional pain syndrome occurs in a limb, most commonly after an injury or surgery. It involves nerve damage that affects the signaling from the brain and spine

Symptoms include: burning pain, tingling, hypersensitivity to a pain trigger, swelling, changes in skin color or texture.

Erythromelalgia

Erythromelalgia is a relatively rare disease involving red, hot, and painful feet without a known cause. The severity of the disease varies between individuals. Pain can worsen after: exercise, walking, standing, exposure to heat.

Vitamin deficiencies

A lack of some B vitamins in the diet can result in a sensation of burning feet. Nerve damage may stem from deficiencies in: vitamin B-12,vitamin B-6 and vitamin B-9 (fo