[Tweedles]

I'm living with severe neuropathy of the feet & legs. It gets worse daily. Its now starting 2 take over my hands & arms with pretty bad itching. I have started seeing a neurologist with little luck in helping the severe pain. I have type 2 diabetes that is controlled. I also have a nerve impingement @ L5-S1. Could this all possibly b coming from my back & not the diabetes? I've only been diagnosed with diabetes 4 approx. 3 yrs. Nerve impingement, 9 yrs. Thank u 4 your input.

[glenntaj]

--though I'm sorry for the nerve discomfort you're experiencing. Nerve pain and parastheses can be one of the hardest things to diagnose accurately.

Given that you are now experiencing symptoms in your upper body, it's hard to imagine that your all your pain is due to spine impingment, though it wouldn't hurt to get some imaging done of the cervical spine as well, to see if that can explain the upper limb symptoms. But, of course, diabetes, controlled or not, is a very common cause of neuropathy. Even impaired glucose tolerance diagnosed before frank diabetes can lead to nerve dysfunction and symptoms.

Moreover, there's nothing that says you can't be "co-morbid"--that is, having tow (or more) thing contributing to the nerve pain. There is, in fact, a special name for this--the "double crush phenomenon"--in which a nerve already malfunctioning for one of any number of reasons is that compressed and produces symptoms that are out of proportion to the sum of the compromising forces.

If you haven't already, please do visit both our Peripheral Neuropathy forum and our Spinal Disorders forum (both have excellent info and links):

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum22.html

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum20.html

[Dmom3005]

Welcome to the site.

I can't answer the questions. And I'm no good at links.

Just also wanted to state the diabetic room is a good place for information
too.

Donna