Hello all,

Thanks for being here. It seems I've joined a club that no one wants to belong to. But the support here seems like it could be a real help.

I am 60 years old. 3 months ago I woke up with some decreased sensation in the sole of one foot. Prior to this I had been very active, hiking, etc, and in generally good shape.

Things have progressed to burning in both feet/toes, inability to tolerate much walking because it caused more pain as the day goes on, now some ankle involvement. Sleep is often impaired.

A month ago I had an EMG/NCV test which was essentially normal. The doc running the test gave a preliminary diagnosis of SFN, and my symptoms so far have been consistent with this. I have an appointment with a neurologist (UCSF) in a month to start working to an official diagnosis, probably by skin biopsy.

I do have some spinal issues (cervical and lumbar central stenosis, and moderate foramen narrowing at L5, so one doc gave a steroid injection at L5 to see if that helped. It did not help, unfortunately.

This thing has hit me like a ton of bricks, and has been life-changing. I used to relieve stress by going walking/hiking. Now if I try to do that I pay severely with pain later in the day. Very frustrating. I used to ski, but it looks like that will be just a memory from here onward. Sleep is often interrupted.

I have been started on gabapentin, up to 1500mg/day, working toward 1800 mg. Not much help so far. I do have some tramadol that helps a little, but no guarantee that they will refill that going forward.

My hat is off to those of you who have managed to cope with this for a long time; you must be very strong. I do hope I learn to deal with this better than I have been able to do so far.

Thank you all for being there!

-RedRoan