Can anyone out there share what got them the diagnosis?

Doctor now just says I have a skin disturbance of unknown origin.

I am trying to decide now if I should go to Mayo or not.

TIA.

Mine was diagnosed with a skin biopsy. What does he mean by skin disturbance?

That is my diagnosis now. I am very concerned by his correspondence and focusing on "my anxiety." I don't want that to impact my treatment. It is so upsetting to have so little time with doctor's that they really can't see that anxiety is the result of the symptoms, not the cause.

Any amount of face time can let a person know that there are deep rooted psychological problems or not. Just get so little face time.

Each visit time averages 5-7 minutes!

How long did you have symptoms by the time you had the skin biopsy?

Thanks so much!

My neuro diagnosed me in 6 months. I was lucky I had someone who really listened. 6-7 mins is a very short appt. Both my neuro amend rheumo give me at 20 mins.

You may have already said but are you seeing your GP for this or a neuro?

A big head of a department Neuro-probably not that great. Down south there is a HUGE shortage of doctors and excellent customer service.

--what is meant by a "skin distrubance"?

Obviously, there are a lot of skin conditions that can produce all sorts of unusual sensory sensation by affecting the nerves, but these don't start in the nerves, and are different from, say, a small-fiber neuropathy that produces numbness or parastheses (disturbed sensations) through direct damage to the nerves.

Do you have any evident rash, or discoloration?

I guess it is a catch all and they are not going to diagnose by physical exam.
No evidence of rash or discoloration.
Not sure what is going on with their diagnosis:disturbance of skin sensation.

Thanks so much.

You really need a skin biopsy to confirm or rule out small fiber neuropathy.

Not much can be done in 5-7 minutes...except ask for the biopsy maybe.

So, how soon will the damage show up on a skin biopsy?

It is probably too soon for a biopsy.

If the dorsal roots are causing the pain (like from viruses), the biopsy would not show damage for quite a while. Long term damage from the dorsal roots along the spine, will cause atrophy in the periphery.(this has been shown in animals so far).

The explanation is in our dorsal root thread in the subforum.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread147771.html

This is a collection of diagrams of the dorsal roots from Google images:
https://www.google.com/search?q=dors...ed=0CAYQ_AUoAQ