[Irelia1680]

Hi,

My father recently was afflicted by rapidly progressing peripheral neuropathy. Our healthcare provider has failed to provide anything useful, and it continues to progress as far as we can tell. Any help or input from people who know a lot about the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Male/Age: 55/Caucasian (English/Irish/Scottish/German mutt)/Blonde/Blue/5'6" ~210~ lbs, Diet heavy on meats and starch, but all around not tooo bad

What happened:

He was recently afflicted with what appeared to be a 24hr stomach flu (some vomiting.) A week later he began to notice weakness in his arm, an inability to lift it far up, and muscle pain, especially while sleeping, with tingling and partial numbness to follow. He described the feeling as being punched for the entire night. This feeling then started in his legs, then affecting his groin area as well. His walking became less steady.

Key Affected Areas: Arms (especially right arm should and elbows,) waist/groin, and both legs

3 days after onset he was admitted to the hospital having some wobble in his walk. After 5 (total, +2 from the hospital) he came out barely able to walk, worse all around. Pale in the days before hospitalization (but regained colour during/after,) exhausted by small attempts at movement, sweating.

The tests that were done in hospital are as follows:

Numerous Blood Tests: Doctors reported nothing on these, not sure what all was tested

HSV Test: negative, though there was possible exposure around 3 weeks prior to this episode to a dormant individual

EMG (Electromyography Supposedly ruled out Gullain Barre, reported no response in the deltoid muscle.

Failed 3 attempts at lumbar puncture in a row, could not get spinal fluid they said. He was scheduled to have an anesthesiologist do a higher puncture, but that was cancelled after the EMG.

MRI: Nothing to report

A doctor said they thought it was HNNP (Hereditary Nerve Pressure Palsy,) but there was no mention of this diagnosis on his discharge papers, they simply said all tests were inconclusive.

I wish I had the actual information, but I only have what comes down second hand from doctors.

Other factors:

Around 2008, my father and I both had a virus that caused arm pain. It was just some weird annoying virus to me, but for him, his left arm became quite weak and hard to lift, it took around 1 to 1.5 years to fully recover if I recall. He says it felt about the same as this, but without pain, tingling, or numbness, just inability to control the muscle. Interestingly, this is the arm he can still use now with decent functionality, his right arm is now barely usable, ie he has to move the arm with the other to a location, but then can seemingly use his hand from that position well enough.

His mother was a Polio survivor with a paralyzed arm.

Had some positional vertigo issues the week before, supposedly due to dislodged calcium in the inner ear, he still believes this to be correct and unrelated.

The rapid progression is quite scary, and I fear it will be too late to really help him (if there's anything to be done) by the time we can cut through all the red tape of the HMO. Definitely going to be looking to get a Peripheral Neuropathy expert's opinion ASAP.

The whole thing still sort of sounds like Guillain Barre to me, his spinal fluid was never tested, it doesn't seem like there are focused pressure points as with HNNP, though I'm no expert. So many causes have nearly identical symptoms, figuring out what's what is extremely difficult.

Thanks for reading
--Sam