First of all, don't worry about my PN, it doesn't bother me one bit. I would never know I had it if she didn't do the tuning fork on me.

I did call the Blue Cross Blue Shield people and I'm glad you think they are leaders in ivig BUT they looked up the code and told me point blank on the phone. WE DON'T COVER THIS FOR NEUROPATHY.

Ain't that a *****. She also said. "well, you could appeal if it becomes necessary but this is still in the investigational stage and we don't approve it.
Now if he had Myasthenia Gravis, then he would BE APPROVED. But not for neuropathy.

See I'm not the type of person who can just sit back and do NOTHING. Never have been. I want answers.

Alan has been on a journey to find out why he has the neuropathy for 18 years. This is the end of that journey. The spinal tap (as Dr. Goldfarb put it), will tell the tale.

Alan is not sure he wants to go through with it unless they do it while he is under the GA for the foot surgery. Makes sense. I mean, why do it at another time, when he's going to be in the hospital for the feet, right. They can simply call down a guy and he can do a lumbar puncture. But don't know if they'll do this.

You might think I'm going overboard on this PN thing but think about it. Alan has been fighting this uphill battle for 18 years. He got relief with Dr. Theirl but every single doctor dismissed his pain. Now he has Dr. Theirl, Dr. Fred and now Dr. Goldfarb. To me, this is a blessing, I know.

But if it turns out that he needs the IVIG and the doctors have to go through hoops to get him this, well, I'm not sure if Alan is the type to say "Okay, let's go through hoops".

He is a very quiet man who just goes to yoga class and makes me laugh. He is absolutely not pro-active in his research on PN. I have done all the work. He doesn't know how and doesn't want to learn.

I'm hoping he gets the spinal tap. At least we'll know if it's an auto-immune thing definitely, right, (if they find protein in the fluid). At least that's what Dr. Goldfarb said.

I just hope this is not another dead end for this guy. He is hoping for some definitive answers.

He's in a depression over our son and he'd like to have a little hope here. When she mentioned the ivig, he kind of perked up.

Jeez, you would think that once you have a medicare HMO, you are covered for everything???? I guess not!!!

mel