Thanks, mrsD, I see the neurosurgeon on Monday so I'll finally get the answer if the cyst may have caused it or not. My neurologist wanted me to ask the neurosurgeon that and not her. I'm not looking for scientific accuracy here on this forum, I can certainly communicate with my doctors, and I do. Sometimes doctors do not like to give straight answers. I'm here on this forum because there's nowhere else to go where people understand what I'm going through and I'd like to offer my support to others as well who are going through similar situations.

I was just wondering if any members here have PN that came about because of a spinal cyst. I've read conflicting info on it. I don't expect any definitive answers on my specific condition, I don't expect medical advice, it's just great to hear about other people's experiences and to read other people's thoughts.

What did you mean by I can't do testing while eating gluten and wheat free? What kind of testing exactly? I've already been through all my bloodwork, MRIs, etc. before I started wheat and gluten free. Will it affect my EMG/NCT?

There is blood work for various gluten issues.

If you are gluten free, the results may show low or normal.
So if getting the blood work done, you have to be eating gluten containing foods for a while in order for that to show up in the blood work.

If you see some benefit at all, I'd continue with the gluten free diet. If you decide to get testing, 2 weeks or more with gluten back in the diet is what you have to do.

--you may be able to get more opinions on spinal cysts or other growths in the spine causing neural symptoms at some of the forums here that deal with that more specifically:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum73.html

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum54.html

I would think that anything that causes compression in the spine or the adjacent nerve roots could cause neural symptoms, depending on where the pressure was, but your symptoms do sound a little more global than one would expect in cases like that (especially the optical ones). Given your family history, the doctors should be monitoring you closely for signs of MS or other demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system; sometimes the original signs of this are rather ambiguous, and there's a lot of controversy in the MS field about "probable" vs. "definitive" diagnosis based on episodes and associated imaging findings.