Quote:
Originally Posted by dseckt
Hi Mike
I would think that everyone in life has had leg cramps in the middle of the night one time or another. Maybe after running or playing golf on a hilly course. That's where my problems began.. It became an everyday thing maybe 15 or 20 times a day. Both legs would cramp up with unbelievable pain. First I was given muscle relaxers and pain pills..This went on for months with no real relief. I began to notice my ankles and feet were becoming numb and would tingle. My doctor sent me to a Neurologists that sent me to have an EMG test..If I would have know what that was, I'd jumped off a bridge before the Appt. Non diabetic so far.. I'm lost and so are the doctors. I can still walk but not more than a few hundred feet before I'm locked up.
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Hey Dan,
I hope your not serious about exploring bridges in your region. You are clearly having the kinds of problems in which neurologists specialize (tingling, numbness in feet, ankles, wrists and hands; recurrent painful muscle spasms; difficulty walking without pain and the need to rest; relief by gabapentin, etc.). Unfortunately, you seem to have a condition which is hard to diagnose. When looking at some of the more rare and unusual neuropathies, it helps to go to specialized University medical centers to get the diagnostic capacities necessary to figure things out quickly. Otherwise it can take years and years to find relief.
I'd recommend that you follow-up with the with the neurologist that you already saw only to enlist his help to GET A FURTHER REFERRAL to, for example, the Cleveland Clinic for an extensive diagnostic work up. I only recommend the Cleveland Clinic because you mention you are from Northern Ohio and it sounds like it might be close to you (and they have a good program on peripheral neurology.).
Sometimes it take a long time to get into the major medical programs so you might want to take a two prong approach: 1) Get the referral thing going and while you are waiting for your turn at a specialized clinic, 2) systematically try some of the recommendations from MrsD, featherbullet and others in this thread.
The other nerve-pain medication like gabapentin is pregablin (lyrica) (that I know about) and sometimes one might be more or less helpful than the other. It sounds like turning 60 has been a real *****, yeah? I was doing pretty damn well until I hit 50 (I'm 57 now) and then things really started going down hill fast. ;(
Mike