Quote:
Originally Posted by mrsD
It all depends on what is causing it.
Dietary triggers are common. Potatoes trigger burning for me. Heavy tomato sauces too. (these are nightshade vegetables and hard to tolerate for some).
Gluten can be trigger. If it turns out to be a trigger for you, going gluten free can stop the PN completely--depending on how successful you are with the diet.
Spicey foods? MSG? all make PN worse IMO.
Toxins, and drugs are another matter. Some people recover from toxic assaults and others do not.
Autoimmune issues can be controlled. But reversal is not common.
Hereditary issues, genetic failures, are not typically recoverable.
Living a cleaner life, eating more whole foods, staying away from processed junk foods, and using some supplements to support the nerves may allow for significant healing.
Alot depends on you, how accurate your diagnosis is, and how you handle your days. Most of the posters here have gotten better and moved on. There are some who are not helped, and those may have vascular damage, or severe cell death, before interventions were started. PN is very complex and sneaky. But keeping positive is a important part, as well as being an active patient, keeping up on new developments, etc.
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My diet has been free of most of these items for more than ten years.
Accurate diagnosis? I only know what my doctors tell me. In 2008, after a rash, I had some neuropathy, so they said I had shingles. Last year, I started getting foot pain. It felt like bone pain or joint pain, not nerve pain (tingling and burning). Now, I have above the waist and below the waist symptoms of neuropathy, mostly hands, arms, legs, knees, and feet. My rheumatologist was so confident of his diagnosis two days ago that he said that, while a biopsy could be performed to confirm small fiber neuropathy, he didn't see the point of it.
Heredity? My brother has MS.
I always understood that dead or damaged nerves could not be restored. This site seems to argue otherwise. Now, I don't know what to believe. Hmm.
I have no desire to take neurontin or lyrica, the two drugs recommended by the rheumatologist, so I am going to start experimenting with vitamins and supplements, as per this forum's recommendations (B12, magnesium, CoQ10, etc.)
In the middle of the night last night, I woke up to discover that I was developing tingling in my left big toe. After an hour, the same thing started happening in my right big toe. It's like I'm watching myself fall apart minute by minute, which, to say the least, is disconcerting.
It should be interesting to see if I can keep from going cuckoo while I learn to deal with this.
P.S. Thanks for your help. It means a lot to me. Indeed, I think it's all I have right now.