Well Liza Jane...boys will be boys!

Can repeating tests like emg tell if the neuropathy is progressing or is stabalized? Sometimes I think that has merit. I know I will not get any better but I would like to keep from getting worse.

Dorothy

Dorothy, I have to say that some of my thoughts about tests have to do with my sense of our messed up health care system. In the old days, when boys were boys and men were men (for all you guys who do it 3x/xxxxxx), doctors accepted that the history the patient gave, combined with physical exam, were enough to make a diagnosis. There are lots of times that doesn't work, and advanced technology is necessary, but there are times when it does work, and most of us illustrate that. Most of us have decreased sensation, and when the doctors test us, it shows.

But even if we have significant findings, we will get nerve conductions to make sure of the exact diagnosis. Once we know what we've got, I see little reason for repeating the electrodiagnostic studies.

If you feel your neuropathy is improving, then you probably have more sensation. A doctor could tell that with a pinprick test, or testing light touch. Reflexes that were gone might be a little brisker. And, you know, you're improving. The studies will lag behind the findings, and the findings are what you notice. And they cost a lot of health care dollars.

So, I'd say, if you think you are getting better, that's good enough.

I'm sure my neuropathy has improved over the past 7 years. My tests were done in 2000, and again in 2005, and were the same. But that doesn't change the fact that I have gotten a lot better. My body tells the truth.

Thanks for the laugh boys, what a ripper " at my age sex is serious " geez, i haven't laughed so hard for a long time.

Never thought such a 'leader' would get such a 'reaction'?! Ladies, thank you for some sane, rational responses grounded in that aspect we pretend to call 'reality'? Guys? Hope you're really, really Romantic to your SO's ....I'd think from your comments, that, you'd be otherwise....well, DOG-meat? Albiet, still displaying some sort of 'charm'.

I realize that after a certain 'point', docs have to super-justify every extra test/therapy or whatever. I've gotten the 'slip' so to speak possibly due to the Cancer and possible Paraneoplastic aspects, tho NO doc seems to be inclined to persue this quarter at all.. I just wonder if a]leaving it open-ended, gives them more lee-way and b] that 'continued therapies' would be more justified under already done testings.
The IVIG IS working, albiet at almost-micro-increments[each month], it's adding up? At first by leaps and bounds, now, by teeny bits. I simply don't want to be 'cut off' because I'm improving. A very reasonable fear I think, Could YOU give up quick your Neurontin/Lyrica or whatever? THAT is my fear, albiet a more expensive one? I do NOT want to disappear due to pain....now I've found a 'modulator'.

BTW GUYS: When I am in extreme PAIN - Well, I tend to grow FANGS? Then BITE? and I am not..at all NICE!

Thanks folks for all good words - j

Yup !!!

--my wife likes the pizza, too.

Well then Brian,

if you thought this was funny, than I'd love to know what you think when

they say they are "rooting for you"!! LOL

I have been smiling for days


I always thought that this forum had a certain "je ne sais quoi".

I would never repeat a test if I thought a treatment or benefit depended upon it's being abnormal. Not worth the risk.

I am jealous of each and every one of you with a "SO". Oh well. Ya never know...

Geez, they would have to be good to be able to do that for me .
I can't work out when i hear Americans say that they are going
" down under " for a while, i wonder what they mean
take care
Brian

--for those without SO's, the search for Mr./Ms. "Right" must be put on hold, as Robin Williams says, so that Mr./Ms. "Right Now" can be utilized . . .

I do wonder, given the difficulties of relationships, whether the "friends with benefits" generation may have hit upon a good idea, provided they practice safely, of course.

My joke is that since my wife is an ultramarathoner, and I work mostly nights/weekends, we rarely see each other and so get along fine.