So I was at my neuro today, and now I am more confused....

He read the report of the neuro that diagnosed me with plexus neuritis and said "That is not what you have. This is wrong. and with neuritis, you prescribe cortisone right away, not months later. Plexus neuritis looks totally different, the arm is lame...."

I told him the history that it all started in December and I thought it was from my cervical neck. Lots of pain, throbbing, felt like my arm had a fever. And now I am left with twitching, pain, some throbbing, and weakness. That I go to physiotherapy and every time, it feels good and my arm calms down after physio. That on 25-Nov-28 Nov I was in the hospital for a stomach flu, it wiped me out, they tested for all kinds of stuff, nothing was found. Diagnosis = gastroenteritis. Then on 16-Dec, I had a herpes outbreak on my lip, a very terrible one where I felt it crawl across my face. Then around Christmas, my arm and shoulder pain started, and I've felt the weakness since then.

He looked at my labs. My positive ANA and the fact that - get this - my CRP was at 4.3 (where over 5.0 is not good). BUT that was the level AFTER I had taken a dose of cortisone already. So before the cortisone, it was probably higher, right?

So he believes I have something auto-immunue or infectious going on, but he doesn't know what. He thinks THAT is more possible over a plexus neuritis. He wants me to stop taking the cortisone (I am tapering off of it anyway), and keep taking the gabapentine for my pain. He thinks that otherwise, anything could be causing my arm problem, from a shoulder injury to auto-immune to something in my shoulder being inflamed, like tendons or whatever. But isn't neuritis caused by something auto-immune or infectious?


I asked him about my abnormal EMG and he said this, which surprised me "Anything could cause these results." So he didn't seem to take it seriously. ?? How can an abnormal EMG be "anything"?

He took blood for lime disease, since I've never been tested for that. I told him I was never bitten by a tic. ???? I need to call back in the week to find the results.

CONFUSED!!!!!
And I go to the 3rd neurologist tomorrow - the professor, and I will tell him all of this and hopefully I will get more clarity.

But I asked this neuro - he knows my fear of ALS - if this could be - and he said no, not with this pain and it being in your shoulder and your strength is normal. So...2 totally different opinions about my arm so far.

Can we please huddle up and let me know what you think of this 2nd neuro's opinion?