Mel -

Morton's in both feet at the same time? While possible, not very likely. I also recall a study of presumed patients with this condition . . . that is, Morton's in both feet at the same feet. Findings : proper investigation revealed that a good percentage of those feet did not have Morton's.

Anyway . . . I have no doubt that you will get to the bottom (oh, oh - sorry about that) of the Morton's situation.

Glenntaj's point about co-morbidity is exactly the point I was making with all that stuff about blaming things on a familial condition. We have seen that happen with the diabetic PN folks here over and over - every symptom gets written off to that one condition. The real percentage of co-morbidity is always shown to be much higher than anyone thinks if a proper study is done.

Oh . . . . about lying down causing Alan's sxs to get much worse . . . this is not at all uncommon - although perhaps not usually as dramatic as in Alan's case. I have found that over the five or so years of my PN that the position I am in has a great deal to do with my comfort - and that the position of maximal comfort is always changing.

During the early years, this position would change over a pretty short period of time . . . now it is changing much more slowly - hopefully a good sign for me. I had a pretty lengthy period of time where lying down was very, very uncomfortable - really made it hard to sleep.

I think a good deal of this effect is nothing more than the pattern of response in the peripheral nerves to stimulation - both external (e.g. lying down creates a lot of input for the receptors, which are located in the layers of the skin) and internal (aggregation of stimuli and then relay to higher CNS centers). As damaged nerves change, whether it be through the "dying back" of axons, dorsal root ganglion, etc . . . . it makes sense that our nervous system will "translate" an experience such as lying down differently over time.

After all, the nervous system does exactly that anyway, that is, try to make some sense of this abnormal clatter from peripheral nerves. If only we could "train" our CNS to interpret this sensory array differently. Speaking of this . . . well, I'd better not get going on about this - - but in short, this is what I am trying to do to help lessen pain. Still working on it . . .

rafi