Permanent nerve damage? Autonomic Neuropathy? What next?

[Old§Tired]

I started experiencing hot & cold sensations in my feet. This progressed to burning forearms, tingling feet & tingling/numb upper lip. Now the tingling/prickling can occur up my thighs & in my hands, forearms & jawline. I also have pain in my toes when the tingling is at it’s worst & the index finger & thumb of my left hand can be extremely painful. I sometimes get painful/sensitive skin on my legs & arms. At these times I can’t stand to have clothing touch these areas & I will get sharp, shooting pains in these areas. My hands, feet & calves have gone numb for several days during the worst ‘attacks’. There are areas on my hands that when touched/bumped, feel like I’ve hit the funny bone in my elbow except the nerve sensations occur in my fingers. When the tingling/burning are bad, I need to change positions often to get relief similar to when a foot is asleep & you move it to let the circulation back in. I have alot of fatigue, at these times I have difficulty with quick movements like getting out of a chair & going up the stairs, or any other movement requiring xtra effort. My legs/arms/face will ache/throb, I’ll feel dizzy, get short of breath & may get a weak feeling traveling down my legs, making me feel like they're going to give out. I get clusters of tingling in the back of my head that feels like it’s occurring on the surface of my brain, not the skin.  These symptoms come and go randomly but the tingling is never completely gone & can be mild for a few days & then quite severe for a few days. Symptoms are always worse at night. Some symptoms can be gone for weeks.

[CCF-Neuro-M.D.-PW]

I cannot give you a clinical diagnosis over the internet unfortunately, as this website is purely educational

Autonomic neuropathies are more likely to present with changes in sweating, heart rate, gut motility etc

Neuropathies assocaited with burning pain, numbness can be termed small fiber neurpathies and outside of test for conditions like amyloidosis (tesed also by rectal biopsy) and diabetes, most remain undiagnosed. More recently, skin biopsy looking at epidermal nerve fibers has been able to make the diagnosis in some patients. This can be done at Neuromuscular centers such as the Clevland Clinic. Also even when regular diabetes tests are negative, impaired glucose tolerance (early diabetes) may be rpesnet and cause neuropathy.

Increased sensitivity to pain is called allodynia and can be also presentin complex regional pain syndrome aka reflex sympathetic dystrophy. This can result from even trivial truama to a limb followed by pain, wasting an autonomic changes in the limb. Ask your doctor about these potential diagnosis and tests for them

Good luck

[Old§Tired]

Continued....The other strange symptom that I have is a painful throbbing in my legs & arms approximately 15 minutes after drinking an alcoholic beverage.  This throbbing does not happen every time I have a drink.  I also have very low blood pressure on occasion in addition to tachycardia.

All of this has been going on for 6 ˝ years, ever since the birth of my daughter.  I have endometriosis and hashimoto’s thyroid disease.  I am euthyroid at .05 levothyroxine per day and have been since my diagnosis 6 years ago.  I was instructed to go to .075 levothyroxine 6 months ago because of low T3, but have since gone back to .05 as this dose was too high.  There is a possibility that I have Sjogren’s, but so far the blood tests are negative.  Also, I do not have diabetes.  I did see a neurologist a year ago, and she did a quick EMG in the office on the left hand and foot when my symptoms were mild.  She mentioned some cross-over (?) in the left hand.  She did not order any further tests.  I have many other symptoms not related to this forum, and this post is long enough.  I’m pretty sure my symptoms are autoimmune related.  My questions are:  Do I have permanent nerve damage?  Do I have autonomic neuropathy?  The thought of autonomic neuropathy really scares me, and I wonder what my future holds.  Are there any further tests that I need and should I be receiving treatment of some kind?  Old&Tired

[Floxie99]

Have you, in the past year, been treated with a fluoroquinolone-based antibiotic (levaquin, tequin, cipro, floxin, etc)? If so, you may be suffering from an adverse reaction to that drug. These reactions can come on long after you are treated, and cause symptoms like you are experiencing. The use of steroids often exacerbates the effects greatly.
Very often those hurt think they have MS, or ALS, or fibromyalgia, or a host of other maladies.

If you are suffering these weird symptoms, I suggest you check out the following sites:
www.medicationsense.com
www.fqvictims.org
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/quinolones

[spenjo]

I had similar symptoms and I noticed that they would flare up at times and be very mild at others times even to the point that I thought they were going away.  This was very frustrating as all of my tests were normal.  I started documenting everything to try to determine the trigger for the flare ups.  I found that when I ate too much sugar or too many carbs that my symptoms would flare up.  This was the only common thread in relation to the worsening of symptoms.  It turns out that I have impaired glucose tolerance.  I have since begun exercising regularly, lost some weight, and began eating on the Zone plan.  The Zone keeps insulin levels steady so there are no spikes and since then my symptoms are pretty much gone - unless I eat a piece of desert.  You may want to have a glucose tolerance test done.