Thank you all for your encouraging messages.
Yesterday I met a foot specialist. Quite young lady who is not a doctor. She checked my toes and ball of both feet. She did find several places where a slight pressure did hurt. She said that the situation is not very bad but the nerves between toes might be a problem. She also found an extremely sore place in the middle of the foot bottom. In both feet. The reason for that is my high plantar arches. I passed all tests that this specialist asked me to do. The strenght of my toes are ok etc.
The foot specialist gave several exercises that I can do at home. For one of those I need a half of a tennis ball that I squeese under my toes.
I am also puzzled about the "30 seconds diagnose" of the orthopedist last week. I don't have a baseline. Maybe my feel of the tuning fork has slways been poor. I am a tall 6 feet 4 inches (192 cm) guy with long legs.

Hi Max1956,

Peripheral neuropathy is very common, and people usually get along with it, making some adjustments in their lifestyles. As someone has already said, the right type of shoes can make an amazing difference.

The most common cause of peripheral neuropathy is diabetes. This information is from the UK's NHS and might answer some of your questions:

Peripheral neuropathy - Diagnosis
- NHS

I hope you'll have good luck with your upcoming appointments.

Hi agate
I checked your link. During last week after I heard that I probably have neuropathy I have been working as a Google Doctor most of the time that I am awake. There is a lot of information but it is quite hard to analyze it.

These are from your link. I did put my answer to the symptoms :

Symptoms of sensory neuropathy can include:

pins and needles in the affected body part - I dont have these
numbness and less ability to feel pain or changes in temperature, particularly in your feet - I can feel if my feet are cold or not
a burning or sharp pain, usually in the feet - light burning is going on around left ankle
feeling pain from something that should not be painful at all, such as a very light touch - I don''t have any extra pains anywhere in my body
loss of balance or co-ordination caused by less ability to tell the position of the feet or hands - No problem with these

I don't have any signs of motor, autonomic or mononeuropathy that are listed at this site that you gave the link.

At this moment I have slight numbness at the bottom of my feet. The feeling changes during the day. Sometimes it feels that the feet are coming normal but then in a few minutes the numbness comes back. I also have the strange feeling on my left ankle. I did not have that a week ago. My toes are also quite cold almost all the time. All my symptoms became worse after I heard that I might have neuropathy.

"Peripheral neuropathy" sounds scary, maybe because it's a couple of long words with a definite medical flavor, but a diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy isn't a major calamity. People live with it.

Why not relax and wait and see what those tests show? It sounds as if you're getting too worried--and when a person gets too worried, symptoms often worsen.

One way of looking at it might be to tell yourself that everyone gets older, and as we get older we usually develop some health problems. It's inevitable. We wear out over time. Unfortunately!

If we're one of the luckier ones, our health problems are manageable--arthritis sets in, or peripheral neuropathy, or chronic something-or-other.

I'm going out on a limb by saying what I've said as I don't know you but thinking about all of the really disastrous problems I could have and don't is a thought I find calming.

I'm not assuming that you'll be diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy. I hope your symptoms will have a satisfactory solution!

Thanks agate
I followed your advice and have not searched neuropathy pages from Internet as active as earlier. Today I am feeling quite good. I got some exercises from the foot specialist but I found out that the best way is just relax and do nothing. At home I wear Crocs shoes that have soft layer inside and keeping those shoes I don't feel any problems on my feet. My ENMG test is on the 14th December.

There's a lot to be said for that ancient remedy, "tincture of time." So much medical testing is available now that we often get tempted to get quite involved in seeing doctors and having tests and procedures, and all too many people sign up for surgery when they might have been better off just letting time pass.

Good luck with your test on the 14th!

Today I had the ENMG test. Everything was ok. I don't have peripheral neuropathy. The doctor said that my reflexes etc are in a better condition than people at my age usually have.

I have still some numbness on my toes and ball of both feet. They are not bad as they were 3 weeks ago when I posted my first comment to this thread. I have done some exercise with my feet and have used ice packs. Maybe this is a feet problem. There is some new symptoms as I feel some burning feeling on both my ankles. I can feel it a few times a day. It might be a problem triggered by the anxiety that I've had during last weeks. Now I try to cool myself and concentrate to other issues.

Glad your test results were so good! It might be best to use the ice packs very sparingly--not very long at one time--as they will make numbness worse or bring it on.

Sometimes just changing the type of shoe you're wearing can work wonders. Even the type of socks can make a huge difference.

--EMG/Nerve conduction studies can only reveal problems with larger, myelinated nerves that control motor functions and the sensory positional and mechanical touch/vibration modalities/

They cannot measure the more thinly myelinated or unmyelinated small fiber that subsume the sensations of pain and temperature, as well as mediate autonomic functions. That take other testing, including sudomotor sweat testing, qualitative sensory testing, or skin biopsy to check density and condition of intraepidermal nerve fibers.

Hmmm! Doesnt sound like neuropathy to me. I would just handle it as a foot condition. It could be nerves but not neuropathy. I have all 3 types of neuropathy and know the symptoms pretty well. I would look after my feet with some tender loving care