Any references to CIDP here are on the 'Autoimmune board' which is slow. There are other resources...some in the stickies, others maybe not.
CIDP can have LARGE, MEDIUM And SMALL nerve fibre manifestations...it depends on the extent of the inflammation, how soon it might be tested and diagnosed.
I did have serum protien issues spinal wise, in my diagnosis, but also there were a bunch of 'signals' in my blood work-ups as well. I'd been tested for west-nile, lymes', you name it. and some of those tests were 'inconclusive', but since I'd been exposed to animals that had been diagnosed and died from W/N, Lymes and a few others..well, those titres would be off the norm...The keys for me were the blood work-ups eliminating a lot of issues, BUT still showing s/x's of inflammations, the spinals the same and the nerve studies....I for one, have all but the grossest of large fibre affectations.

This is NOT meant to be discouraging-BY NO MEANS! This means that diagnosis IS PART of beginning to live any life at all from HERE FORWARD! As many others have said, PAIN CONTROL is your starting point, finding what helps and not. Then, PT and getting some or most parts of YOUR LIFE BACK. Next after that is keeping on with the keeping on. The more you work to GET your body back and working, even at a lower level than before...the BETTER!
Yeah, I know what it's like to take a 10 minute 'excursion' to the bathroom, and then another back! I know what it's like to take a 10 minute effort to get UP OUT OF A CHAIR to make that excursion. My 'onset' hit me and hard! Docs kept understating it until I kept pushing docs to test [a la Liza Jane Worksheets- that I didn't know about at that time...] and got testing.. I KNEW IN MY HEART that something ELSE was going on...turned out so.
That I can still go out and 'shop' and go places [tho short distances and not for long] I think is pretty good as I almost was 'written off'. We each have to grab hold and keep of what aspects of our lives that we can handle and, if we pace ourselves do a bit more each day... Enjoy what all we can and work our way upward.
CIDP is diagnosed by the protocols Glenntaj cited. Blood work, spinal fluids assesments and nerve conduction studies...That's all there is, but IF you get 'em that's all folks! Next is treatments... HUGS - j