In an effort to get some pain relief for neuropathy I saw a chiropractor this week. Those xrays clearly show that the C3 and C4 vertebrae have grown together. He indicated this "was very old and must have occurred several years ago." He indicated it would take a serious trama to cause this. I have never been in an auto accident or had any type of serious trama...something caused it but I don't know what.

Anyway, I shared this info with my neuro who ordered and MRI of my neck. I had it this morning. The MRI tech gave me a DVD of the MRI results to take back to my neuro. The MRI shows the two vertebrae in discovered by the chiropractor. Please excuse my lack of medical terminoloy as I try to explain what they look like....The ends of the vertebrae nearest the outside of my neck are touching and seem to be grown together. The disc between the C3 and C4 is pushing out into my spinal column. You can see this disc is a bit further out than the discs between the other cervical vertebrae which don't seem to be touching/pushing into the spinal area.

I wonder if this could be the cause of the neuropathy???

If this is an old issue as state by the chiro, wonder why it just started cause problems now?

Anyone have an opinion or experience with something like this?

This is something your neurologist should be able to address for you. Did they give you a radiologist reading on the scan? Any interpretation?

Weekends are slow.

Billye

The tech. indicated that they would be reading the MRI and would forward it to my neuro doc within 3 days so I don't have anything other than the DVD. I asked a few questions but he was very reluctant to answer...then gave me the DVD to take to the doc. Of course, we immediatly brought it home and cranked it up in the computer. There were 42 different "views" of my cervical spine so we didn't know much of what we were looking at except that we could clearly see the C3 and C4 and the disc pushing into the spine. I don't see the neuro until 8/12/08 so I am anxious to hear what his report it...

--a disc that is pressuring the spinal cord could be casuing neurological symptoms, although wouldn't technically be peripheral neuropathy (though it would be if it were impacting the nerve roots--radiculopathy--instead of the cord itself).

You may well need a greater range of tests (such as discograms) to determine what is generating the symptoms. The people at the Spinal Disorders and Back Pain forum here will certainly have some suggestions:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum22.html

Leslie please keep us posted...Glen thanks for that imformation ,just got done
readin those stickes again ,thanks.. Hugs to all Sue

Thank you, I'll check that site out.

I'll be sure to keep you posted. I wonder why I have not ever had any neck or back pain?...still don't have it now.

I know this is an old post, but felt compelled to respond. I started having burning and tingling in my feet about 15 years ago at age 40. My primary made a couple of stabs at what it might be. I wasn't diabetic then, or now. He thought it might be cold foot syndrome, too young for PN. In about 2003 my complaints got me a prescription for Gabapentin which got bumped up to 1800mg a day. I was still in a mind set I would get better. My balance was getting impaired and on a visit to my primary I joked about how I was going to need a note from him to show police should I have to ever do a field sobriety test. He was shocked. I soon saw a couple of Neurologists. One was lame and one was quite curious. During this time frame I had had a couple of MRIs on my lumber region and one on my cervical region. They showed I suffered from stenosis in both regions. I had epidurals in both regions. It was the cervical epidural which was interesting. It made my feet feel so much better. Nobody believed me that such a thing could happen. Soon I had exhausted the testing resources of the clinical group of doctors I was seeing and they referred me to the UW medicine. I went through the same testing and then some. To date I have had 5 nerve conductance tests, tons of blood work, sweat test, genetic testing and small fiber biopsy. All indicate idiopathic small fiber peripheral neuropathy. Lucky for me, it seems to be in my feet and ankles and hasn't progressed in about 4 years.
So, yes, the cervical can have impact on your feet. I haven't been able to convince my neurologist to do another one so it's been 4 years since I had the unexpected therapeutic relief from the epidural. I'm currently trying to ween myself off of all the drugs I have been on to see what life is like without meds like Lyrica, Tramadol, Ibuvicoden. I have been taking 1800 mg of alpha-lipoid acid a day.
Recently I have been plagued by Plantar Fasciitis recently. An young know of connections between PN & PFC?

Congrats on your progress!

I have a sneaking suspicion my neck is involved in my problems as well, although some other things have surfaced as well.

I started having neck problems back in my early 20s, and at about the same time, I started experiencing strange neurological sensations in my left leg. I've had them every since...for about 30 years. Suddenly last year, I got the feeling things in my left leg were getting loose. Then almost exactly a year ago, all hell broke loose. My left leg got much worse, my right leg matched it, and I was having strange sensations body-wide. After every test under the sun, my neuro finally diagnosed idiopathic SFN.

The coincidence is that about 3 weeks before my sudden downturn, I hurt my neck. It seemed to recover from "being stuck" on its own after a few days...or did it?

The other thing that has surfaced is that I am indeed on the very low end of the diabetes spectrum. Despite completely normal fasting glucose levels and a normal A1c result, my blood sugar does indeed spike too high with carb intake and stays too high for too long. I have no clue if this is the true cause of my issues or not, or perhaps a contributing cause, but I certainly don't think it was involved in my left leg developing problems 30 years ago.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your story. It's very interesting to me as my cervical MRI is showing issues, but as you heard, nothing that could be causing problems in my legs and feet.

Welcome Gwylliam.