Hello to everyone on this site, I am a new member and this is my first post. Soulful Yin I have recently read your original post and have experienced a few things that may or may not help in some small way.

I wad diagnosed initially with peripheral neuropathy 18 months ago. Fortunately at the moment it is limited to my feet and I have lots of burning and stabbing sensations on the tops of both feet which I am told was brought about through a mixture of poor diet, diabetes and alcohol consumption over a number of years. In addition I also have a feeling of standing on pebbles on the soles of my feet which my neurologist has said could potentially be small fibre neuropathy. I am waiting for an MRI scan to confirm this.

I have had a foot x ray, ultrasound and an electromyography in the past and I have also been prescribed amitriptyline which only sent me to sleep, gabapentin which gave me severe stabbing pains and finally duloxetine. The last one (duloxetine) was the best of the bunch and did a marvellous job of taking the burning/stabbing feelings away but gave me a huge headache (though definitely worth it). I started to break the tablets in half because they became quite severe at times. It did nothing for the feeling I had of standing on pebbles however.

Recently I started to pay more attention to my diet and monitor the effect that certain foods had on my pain. I have eliminated all alcohol, carbohydrates and most sugars (apart from the natural sugar in berry fruits) and found that citrus fruits and salt make my pain much worse. I have kept a food diary so now I know which foods I can and can’t eat and strangely I have also discovered that consuming foods that have been chilled or frozen trigger a great deal of pain as opposed to room temperature foods which do not. I am now taking vitamin D3, B1, B12, magnesium and high strength omega 3 fish oil supplements too.

I have been on my eating plan for just one week so far and already I feel that my pain is improving.
I may not become pain free but any small improvements are a huge bonus and I plan to continue this for as long as I feel any benefit. I realise that all individuals would need to find their own trigger foods as we are all different however I suspect that sugar and carbohydrates are quite common in us all.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I do wish I had paid more attention to my diet a lot sooner than I did rather than being more reliant on medication.

I wish you well with your personal battles surrounding neuropathy.