Oh, I am afraid I am just getting "re-started" on the diagnoistic testing again after all these years. I have been fighting fistulas and strictures and **** fissures with my Crohn's and just now have realized with some of those symptoms under better (not complete) control, that my feet, especially, have become worse. Hopefully I haven't waited too long, but for some of those years (since 2002) the thought of another doctor or another drug was just overwhelming. And for a while the symptoms weren't as bad, and I picked my art back up after three decades of disuse, and tried to keep busy in between the gastrointestinal episodes. But I can not ignore the dropped pastel stick or toaly numb hand after holding the paintbrush . . . or the insanely crampy, painful feet with the hypersensitivity and numbness playing off one another any longer.

I just had blood taken and I believe my physician (I just had to change my personal physician due to a clinic closure) has requested the complete panel. I have never been low on B's before, but I suppose that is always a possible outcome. She is checking my thyroid and other things as well. It is usually my gastro who orders the bloodwork, but I am glad my personal physician did this time.

Another issue I have is that I am stubbornly opposed to the wholesaling of our health to the drug companies, and really didn't want to try neurontin again. (My last neuro gave me samples without dosing information. . . how the heck was I supposed to even know whether they might help, eh?) Between the side effects, the cost, and the donut hole in my Medicare coverage. . . I did not want yet another reason that I might not have the money to keep warm each winter! I swallow dozens of pills , capsules and gel caps a day . . . and use pricey probiotic supplements for my intestines, and am tired of a bigger piece of my economic pie going to pharmaceuticals every time I turn around.

I hoped that by coming here I might learn to avoid trying things that don't work, have the potential to hurt, or otherwise are the best choices, I realize that each sufferer is different. . . it is the same with Crohn's. What works for one aggravates another. I just want to be educated. . . and realized I could research all day long and never really get anywhere. . . but that I might find a forum like this one and benefit from those who have gone before me. It certainly worked in my Crohn's forum, where I found a treatment that is actually helping. I am lucky to have a gastro who is open minded and willing to try new things. Hopefully my neurologist will be just as cool . . .