Originally Posted by Ragtop262

After dealing with various doctors over about 9 months now, I think much of this comes down to resources. The doctors are so busy. Where I am, it takes about 4 weeks to get an appointment with a general neurologist, who it seems is really only there to screen you to determine what sub-specialist you need to see. Then it takes 4 months to see the sub-specialist, who will do tests that primarily see if you have significant motor deficiencies. If you have a pure sensory neuropathy, they may not find any obvious physical symptoms.

So, if you have something like SFN, there are so many possible causes (it seems like hundreds), and so many tests that may have to be run to rule out each one. Then, if they find the cause, there's a good chance they won't be able to do anything about it anyway (other than pain treatment). So, it seems like they just don't want to spend the time and money, when there's so many other patients waiting to be treated.

I don't want to sound too negative on the doctors, I think they do the best they can. But just like everyone else in the working world, they have to prioritize things. And in the world of neurological problems, sensory neuropathies aren't that high on the list.

In my case, the neuromuscular specialist said he couldn't find any significant physical signs of PN. So, to "reassure" me, he said that whatever I had might be "uncomfortable and inconvenient" but he didn't think it was anything that would be fatal or disabling. (For some reason, I didn't feel all that much better after hearing that.)