--my reduction in small intraepidermal nerve fibers--and the gross appearance of the remaining ones as swollen and frayed--was clearly evident when I had my first skin biopsy three months from onset of symptoms (took me that long to get into the Cornell-Weill Center for Peripheral Neuropathy, as my previous investigations in the hospital and as an outpatient, though involving lots of imaging, blood and urine work, had turned up nothing abnormal and I began to research and drive the protocol; I had only learned about skin biopsy through on-line research and no doctor I had been to to that point had even mentioned it).