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Originally Posted by glenntaj
--but it could be a symptom of a lot of other things as well.
Interesting that your first skin biopsy picked up some "mild changes" in the fibers; can you elucidate? (What did the report actually say?) Often, symptoms are not correlated with degree of damage; there've been many people with "mild" damage of small fibers who have considerable pain or numbness.
Sometimes, also, the damage is patchy and may not be completely picked up at a specific skin site.
One of the good things about the relatively non-invasive nature of skin biopsy is that it can be done over and over again and comparisons made from sample to sample.
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The biopsy (done at JH) included samples from the distal thigh, proximal thigh, and distal leg (both legs).
Most locations reported nerve fiber density within normal limits (although 2 had distribution as patchy). However, all locations reported some occasional medium sized swellings, segmented fibers and/or tortuous fibers.
The summary said there were normal small fiber densities, and the morphological changes are mild and not definitive for a neuropathic process.
The pain in my feet has definitely increased (both severity & 24/7 now) since this was last done, as well as with the relatively new allodynia in both legs. Like I said it's been almost 3 years, so I'm wondering about a repeat biopsy. What do you think? I personally think a comparison would be interesting to see if its consistent with the clinical changes.