When I woke up, I had this strange numbness in my left thumb. It does not have any feel at all. It also feels like a heavy cement. I dont know if this is part of Neuropathy or if its Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. There is nothing new in what I do neither I have over-used this thumb.

Gee, I don't know. I woke up once with a "dead left arm" which took 1/2 hr to wake up! Scared the dickens out of me that did.
But it never happened again.

Now I have a hard calcium/spur deposit on the middle of my left index finger. It is smack dab in between the 1st distal joint, and the middle. Now I do have some Heberden's nodes on my first joints of my right hand. And I recently had a sore thumb joint, that improved with extra magnesium lotion. But this is not at a joint. It first appeared this summer and I put a Salonpas on it for a week, (cut to fit), and then rubbed mag lotion on it every night and it went away. It has come back now and gone away twice since the summer. It is hard and about the size of a dime or slightly smaller, and only painful if I push on it too hard. I don't know what this is. I suspect it is a calcium nodule. I can feel it when I put my fingers all together --it rubs on the middle finger and feels odd.

Mysterious things sometimes?

Oh Mrs.D, you can say that again!!!!
All my 8 fingers, except teh two thumbs have osteoarthritis. They are stiff in the morning and joints are becoming bigger that my rings could no longer fit.
I use Epsom It lotion every night. At first, the stiffness was relieved but recently, even with my regular epsom, my fingers are still painful in hte morning.

Well, the numbness is definitely more than 1/2 hour now. I soaked in warm water with epsom salt this morning. Gosh, the fun of getting older...I am 51 years old.

one time i woke up in the morning and though i could lift my right arm, i couldnt control lowering it, it would just flop down uncontrollably. scared me pretty good. it went away after a short while and never happened again. hopefully this will be the case for you also.

My arm "event" was over 2 or 3 yrs ago. Just before my neck started to have arthritis too.

I attributed it to "sleeping on it funny". It didn't hurt or tingle either. Just couldn't move it.

Now I have this left ankle swelling now and then. Just got over a 2 day swelling event (this is very uncomfortable and somewhat painful). Doctor is stumped. I don't get it on vacation, and it takes a while being home before it returns. I think it is from climbing stairs (no stairs on vacation). (it is my old surgical foot that had the instep tumor removed 50 yrs ago! ) Rubbing on magnesium lotion seems to fix it too, so far.

I am going to be 66 next month. Some days it seems everything is falling apart.

I surely hope so too..... how long before it was gone? Well, as of this writing, the numbness is same.

Since you are on those antibiotics, I'd report this to the doctor.
Just to be sure it is not the beginning of an antibiotic reaction of some sort. If it persists past a day or two, and seems more permanent, then it should be discussed with the doctor.

Advance happy birthday Mrs.D!!!
Its funny you said about "...falling apart". That is exactly how my husband joke about our conditions - "we are falling apart - but dont worry, our two bodies can make one whole person".
On some days, we can laugh about it, but on most days (at least in my case), its a struggle.
On another topic, just a bit of information... I joined a forum on non-tuberculosis mycobacteria. Its a strangely good that inspite of the very strong dosage of antibiotics that we are all taking, I have not encountered anyone who has PN as a side effect of the antibiotics. Some are even taking more combinations and more toxic but no PN. Some of course have the optic neuropathy as a result of the ethambutol. But not the PN as same as in our league. isnt that strange?

Actually, the said thumb still function normally. it can move and has no weakness, just numb and it feels like a hard cement. But, even if its numb, when it touches something, it has an uncomfortable sensation. Its weird. But then, all my sensations are weird!

It is possible there is a genetic weakness that is activated by the toxic drugs. The poster on PD forum here posts lots of genetic
information about statin damage being more common in people with certain genes (found with testing). So it stands to reason that genes may be a factor with these drugs too.

Not that many people take your cocktail. Not compared to the millions and millions taking statins. So statistically the reports will be less.

For example if statin side effects like PN were only 1% (and I do think that number is low), and 15,000,000 (this is a typical number seen in articles) people at random are taking the statin, then 150,000 could have this side effect.
http://www.sharecare.com/question/ho...le-take-statin

I personally think the PN effects are higher than 1%, and with more efficient reporting will go over 5% in the future.
So 150,000 people taking the drug is a huge number of people.
Compared to your very low incidence of treatment with your drugs. Ethambutol is not a common drug at all. So the numbers on your forum, and those reporting a low % incidence of side effects with be much much less frequent.

Ethambutol is a treatment for TB also...so if you look at TB forums...you might see more. The numbers of people in the WORLD taking TB drugs is much higher than US as well.