Thanks Enbloc. Yes I've had this test done by both my old GPs and my neurologist but not for some time - over a year ago perhaps. My balance issues are very subtle and were the first thing to disappear on a high dose of oral steroids. Each time I dropped a dose they would return to plague me. Unruk one hospital admission for a stroke-like turn - retrospectively classed as a function an neurological episode (trauma) - last August - a hospital doctor told me I was tapering too quickly and boosted my dosage again. Then it just went away.

Now I'm back off steroids and it's not fully returned but I will misjudge surfaces, fear falling rather than actually fall, missinterpret visual cues etc and end up clutching walls or touching hard surfaces close by for reassurance. This time last year I felt I had to use a walking stick so I've come on now as I don't even know where mine is! Very interesting to learn about proprioception and SFN - thank-you now I know what this test is looking for.

My previous GP used to ask me to stand up facing him, close my eyes and cross my feet/ legs over and hold his arms out to prevent me falling. I would immediately start falling to one side (the right). He said this meant it was vestibular but knowing my drug allergies he didn't bother with medication and never referred to an ENT specialist. When I asked one of the new GPs to refer me he just said no and referred me to the oral surgeon instead but at the time I wasn't dizzy because it had settled.

The oral surgeon seemed to grasp what I was describing (I really wasn't expecting him to be remotely interested!) and was very sympathetic. His gait was quite similar to mine and his eye twitched a lot like mine does and I wondered if he has similar issues himself. It was very heartening to be understood and for someone to spell out that my symptoms are believed and taken seriously and are almost certainly neurological in origin. They just don't know what it is yet but some form of rare autoimmune neuropathy he felt. I have rather lost faith in doctors reporting my symptoms to their colleagues as they explain it to me though. I've had a professor of connective tissue disease tell me that if he paid heed to autoabtibodies he'd be out of a job - and that I have certain autoimmunity but no reference to this in his clinical letter. Same for my neurologist who explained the stroke-like occurrences brilliantly to me and then described them in his letter in a way that makes me sound like a hysterical fruit cake!

Mat X