Initailly when my back problems came on, I had back pain all the time. It kind of felt like I was chopped in two,as I had almost no strength at my waste area. But all the pain was in my back.

Then one day I had very little pain in my back, but tremendous pain in my legs following the path of the sciatic nerve running down the buttocks area. The feeling was intense burning,ripping,weakness,motor issues,numbness, & all sorts of other weird sensations.

It never went into me feet though. When they operated on me, they removed the 2 discs that were compressing the spinal nerve roots,and I had no more leg & buttock pain. The pain was then localised back up to my back area, until I healed, and then had no more pain for one glorious year.

I guess you can say that I had PN back in those days too, when that pain was radiating into my legs. I had sensory changes,pain,burning,tightness,motor problems,weakness.

But it was quite evident that this was a compression type problem, as one week in bed with antiinflammation drugs and heat and it would shift or reduce the pain.

What I am trying to say it that it was very localised,and things such as massage,spa, anti inflammation tabletes helped me alot. But the problem was the actual compression that needed to be released from the spinal nerves, and that was clearly evident in my MRI.

From what you are saying, Alan's MRI doesn't reveal impingment on the spinal nerves and his PN was very diffuse with burning feet, kind of like the PN that most of us seem to have here.

There is a great possibility that his PN could be from another source other than back?