Hereditary Peripheral Neuropathy

I am a 40 year old female diagnosed a year ago with sensory-motor peripheral nueropathy, just had a second nerve conduction study done. It showed some improvement mainly in the sensory nerves. The motor nerve conduction velocity of the peroneal nerve did not change on the left side, it is still 33 msec it is suppose to be 43msec or higher, my right peroneal nerve did not have a response on the first test a year ago, current test showed the same response as my left at 33msec. my CMAP for the left peroneal is .67 and right .92, normal is 4.0. There still was no sensory responses for the right peroneal, my left peroneal sensory was normal on current study for the distal latency and conduction velocity. The sural nerve was abnormal on the first study a year ago on this current study they responded normally.  Since he has ruled out treatable causes. He now wants to look at the possibility of it being a hereditary neuropathy. I thought hereditary neuropathies usually shows progression. Does anyone no much about hereditary peripheral neuropathy any help would be appreciated.

[ggreg]

I don't know a thing about hereditary neuropathy, but I do know this:  Neuropathy is neuropathy, and it makes no difference where it came from, altho if a medication or chemotherapy or an injury has caused this, once you remove the issue, the neuropathy will usually go away.  The way to go with this is THERE ARE treatments for this, including the nerve pain medicine Lyrica, I take it and have peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet, but despite feeling more comfortable, I still have numbness and some swelling.  Go to a website on the subject, specifically a Peripheral Neuropathy Organization online where that's all they deal with is people who have that, and see what all they have to say about what you can do to help this thing along.

[escape69]

The neurologist has ruled out the common causes of neurpathy already. Diabetic, thyroid, vitamin b12, folate, sed rate, paraprotiens, liver function, kidney functions,ect. all were normal. He was thinking autoimmune problem, but now he does not think that is what's going on. I'm not sure, but I think with signs of regeneration of the nerves that does not seem inline with hereditary.  I have read that cmt does have demylination and some remylination features.

[ggreg]

Well, the cause really doesn't matter in treating neuropathy, altho it is too bad they don't know how come you have it, because you don't know the cause and thus cannot remove it, like if some medication (like chemotherapy) is doing this, once that is stopped, neuropathy goes away for the most part.  By the way, on the subject of heriditary neuropathy, the only diff between it and all other neuropathies, is treatment, which for whatever the source of your neuropathy, there are treatments of all sorts, some depending on what kind, some it doesn't matter.  As I said, I take Lyrica,and I hope your doctor has at least given you SOMEthing to take care of the discomfort you surely have, massage also helps which I do that and didn't even know it was a treatment, and the list goes on, you yourself can go to websites about peripheral neuropathy, the Mayo Clinic, while not just neuropathy, does have a section on it and a list of treatments, as do other health care websites.  

I too had thought about what your doc did, that could be you have MS, but the problem is, you did not mention any symptoms of vision or overall body weakness, which the eyes are usually the tip-off that you have MS.  But since your doc ruled that out (usually this is discovered thru spinal tap, among other things).  But whatever you have, if your toes and/or fingers are numb and/or you have swelling plus discomfort, that is periperhal neuropathy, but there are a raft of symptom lists, also listed at that Mayo Clinic website.  

Other diseases can mimic neuropathy, like if you only have it in your legs, could be some problem with your lumbar spine is causing it, and then there's diabetes.  I'm just reeling off some information that may or may not help you.  I just hope your doc is giving you some medicine for all this, I could not make it without my medicines.  But I'm different from you, mine came on after chemotherapy, and so since I ended my five-month course of treatment recently, it should get better within a couple months.  I hope you told your doc all the drugs you happen to be on now, or anything that you were taking when all this started, in case it's chemically induced.  Go to that Mayo Clinic website and find periopheral neuropathy in their information base, and see if anything in there rings a bell and helps fill in the blanks on this health issue, which can be disabling if it gets bad enough, and sometimes will not go away.