dysesthesia
Meaning of dysesthesia: Dysesthesia is a distorted sense of touch that makes an ordinary stimulus feel painful, unpleasant, or otherwise abnormal.
Definition of dysesthesia
Dysesthesia is a condition in which a sense, most often touch, is distorted so that a stimulus produces an abnormal, and often unpleasant, sensation. A light touch, mild pressure, or a change in temperature that would not normally cause discomfort can instead be perceived as burning, tingling, or painful.
Dysesthesia most often results from damage to nerves themselves, arising in conditions such as diabetic neuropathy, nerve injury, or certain neurological diseases, since the abnormal sensation reflects a problem with how nerves generate or transmit signals rather than a problem with the skin or tissue being touched.
Dysesthesia can also cause reduced sensitivity to a normally painful or intense stimulus, rather than only heightened or altered sensation, and its presence generally points toward an underlying issue affecting the nervous system rather than the body part where the sensation is felt.
How dysesthesia is built
- dys- Prefix · Greek difficult, painful, disordered
- -esthesia Suffix · Greek sensation, feeling
A medical term is read from its ending backwards: the suffix first, then the prefix, then the root. See all 223 word parts.
Used in a sentence
The patient described a burning dysesthesia in the feet associated with longstanding diabetic neuropathy.
Good to know
Dysesthesia reflects a problem with nerve signaling rather than the tissue where the sensation is felt, a distinction relevant when an unusual sensation does not correspond to any visible change in the affected area.
Word origin
Where “dysesthesia” comes from
Formed from Greek dys-, meaning difficult or abnormal, and aisthesis, meaning sensation.