[carrie_irene]

Hi there!

I have spent some time hunting through the forum here and am excited to have found a community with so much info!! I am hoping you all can help me with more ideas.

My husband's neuropathy started about 10 years ago. Not bad, but there. Within the last 5 years it has gotten far more debilitating. He has gone from being a man that loves hiking and being super active, to it hurting so bad to put shoes on. For the longest time, symptoms stayed in feet. WE started seeing Dr after Dr. Frustrating. Some said he was too young to have symptoms so severe (no crap!) .... some said it was a back problem (we chased that one down....only to come up with it NOT being a back problem). Anyway, I am back at square one trying to put pieces together.....

*He is 40 years old.
*He is overweight ...... probably about 40 lbs (he is 6'2")
*His feet make it hard to sleep at night, so he takes a small dose of percocet and a small dose of Ambien to sleep....and that doesn't always help...insomnia is a big problem for him
* Symptoms are spreading to hands.
* WE have confirmed gluten issues. He has one celiac gene and one non-celiac (just intolerance) gene. He has been gluten free for about 8 months....and while it has helped joint pain ALOT, it doesn't seem to have helped the neuropathy.

I have been looking at labs again.....here is what I see, please let me know if there is anything else I can look at:

Vitamin D 25-Hydroxy: 31.7
Epinephrine - 12.4
Dopamine - 89.1
Serotonin - 95.1

It also looks like he is on the low side of "normal" with white blood count.

Ugh.....I just feel overwhelmed. I am getting ready to order up a new round of labs.....but where do I look?

Thanks,
Carrie......who misses her active, non-hurting husband!

[mrsD]

Welcome to NeuroTalk:

Well, I'd start with the gluten issue. People with this intolerance typically are poor absorbers of nutrients from the diet.

So I'd get a B12 test and consider your D test so far as low.
You will want your numbers for the B12 since lab ranges in US are old and inaccurate for today's standards.

Raising the D to 50ng to 80 may help. But other nutrients may also be in short supply. Start with a B-50 complex, some Vit C daily (250mg -500mg), zinc, magnesium (not Oxide form) and see what happens.

The normal range for serotonin is this:
The normal range is 101-283 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL).

There others:
Epinephrine: 0-900 picograms/milliliter (pg/ml)

Norepinephrine: 0-600 pg/ml

I don't really understand why the neurotransmitters were measured. Did your doctor explain that? I also don't understand the reported result since no concentration was included.

People with early onset of PN like your husband, who was around 30, can have endocrine problems. This would be low thyroid, or insulin resistance leading to prediabetes, etc.
Knowing his A1C would be helpful and I think he should have a thorough thyroid panel done. Gluten sensitive people often have autoimmune problems with the thyroid and diabetes.

My PN was thyroid induced and it started around age 30 for me.