I'm with Glenntaj on this one about testing for PN. I know it differs from place to place and that some PN is obvious and easily picked up. However, this is a disease that is evasive, insidious, and sometimes masqurading as something else with a bagillion causes and triggers.

I had a foot drop that was not recognized by my internist, NP, endo, oncololgist, a big university spine center, and the head of ortho surgery. My complaint was I could not move my foot and I had electrical shocks in my hip and down my leg. I started seeking treatment in Dec of 2010 2 months after it started when I realized it wasn't a sprain that was going to get better.

1 1/2 hours of interview is sort of standard with a neuro. Since late April this year, I had about 180 lab tests on blood, urine and spinal fluid, 2 cat scans, 5 mris, and 3 sessions of EMG/NCV on legs and right arm (deferred left arm due to lymph node dessection from mastectomy) that were over 2 1/2 hour per limb. These were done over 5 visits in which I was closely examined for signs of progression, thankfully none.

Initially I was told it was not PN, that my peripheral nerves were fine, after testing it was PN. You could go crazy trying to cope. PN can take its time to appear in lab work, false negatives are known to happen, some forms may or may not show up in testing which does not rule it out.