Peripheral Neuropathy and Amyloidosis

[Clara__0]

  I had an appointment with a neurologist today because of numbness, tingling , burning and sharp stabbing pains in my hands and feet. I am scheduled for an EMG next week.  During the visit, he was talking about family histories and my own medical history. I have Chronic Hepatitis C and Hypothyroidism. I am in remission with the HCV. He explained that the neuropathy could be due to the HCV or several other things. One thing he did mention was Amyloidosis. This caught my attention because last week when I was at the GI doctor, he read me the results of an ultrasound of the abdomen that I had about a month ago. Everything was okay except there were some calcifications in my spleen. I asked him them if that was a problem and he said no, that it could be due to several different things. Amyloidosis was one of the diseases that he mentioned. I just find that a little troubling that this same disease was mentioned by 2 different specialists within a 2 week period. I didn't mention the ultrasound results to the neurologist today. My blood pressure was also 152/110 and last week it was 145/100. Everytime I have gone to my Internal Medicine doctor it is normal, though. So I just wanted to know if I am just borrowing trouble by over reacting to this one disease being mentioned by 2 different doctors. Or could this be something that they may possibly want to check further on? If there is a possiblity that these symptoms could be indicating amyloidosis, could you please give me some general information on this disease? Thank you very much for your time.
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You may have come up with something which explains your problems and it is
VERY important that you share this information with bothof your physicians.
Amyloidosis is a disease in which abnormal protein polymers or aggregates
are laid dowm in multiple organs, it usually occurrs in response to chronic
infection or inflammation and given your history of chronic hepatitis you
would be a likely candidate.
Amyloid is laid dowm as I mentioned in multiple organs,including skin,
spleen, kidneys and peripheral nerves.
In solid organs it can cause enlargement,in peripheral nerves it can
cause neuropathy.
The diagnosis can be made by a biopsy of a peripheral nerve or any other
involved tissue, I would bring this to the attention of your neurologist
as it is obviously very relevant ot your subsequent evaluation and
treatment.