Well today was most interesting. The first part of the test was the EMG and Dr. Goldfarb did both tests on Alan.

I must say, I've had emg's during which I jumped off the table and threatened to punch the nurse who gave me the test, well I threatened to punch her in the face.

And there sat my Alan, just lying there, not feeling a blessed thing. I could not believe it.

Then she did the nerve conduction test where she stuck needles deep into different parts of his body. She did the legs, the hands and then she turned him over and did up and down his spine (telling us she was not putting the needle in his spinal column but rather in certain nerves. She kept saying to him relax, relax and although Alan wasn't moving, the darn screen was making all sorts of noise and she kept saying "we need to not hear the noise".
Alan just said "but I'm not moving". She then said again. "Alan you have to try to relax". Whereupon I just quietly said "Do you want me to help him to relax?" and she said "yes please". and I simply did my thing on his bald head.
She had a bottle of Vitamin E lotion on the counter, so I just put a dollop on my hand and I massaged his head, behind his ears and the top of the back of his neck. The room went suddently quiet and the doctor said "my god, I wish I had you as my assistant. Alan was amost snoring. She kept putting the needles all the way in and he didn't feel it. He was that relaxed.

When it was all over she said "well, I'm not going to go over all the results today, there's too much information I have to go over but I will give you my quick opinion on these tests.

She believes Alan does not have demylinating neuropathy. (I hope I got this terminology right.). I'm not sure if she said "he does not have non-demylinating neuropathy). I did ask her "so his myelin sheath is okay and she said "yes, this means his myelin sheath is not affected".

Alan said "what does this mean". and she said "we'll know more when you go to Dr. Fred and take all the blood tests that I just gave Melody". (she gave me a piece of paper with all the names of the blood tests). Her handwriting is horrible but she assured me that the people will know what she wrote. She did go over them with me and the ones I can remember are as follows:

glucose tolerance test, cryo (something or other), ESR, Reachre, BR, Melanic Acid, Folate, RPR, PANCD, CANADCE, RFACRIR, Quantitative immunglobulins, IVE, SPEP, SSA, SSB, LYME, Naisglutein and something polyneuropathy.
(I have never seen such bad handwriting in my life. We were there for two hours and I didn't want her to re-write everything. She assured me that the people doing the blood test would understand what she wrote and that they could call her with any questions.

She then said "the test I just did (with the needles) told me about the electricity of the nerves. Then she went on (I cannot remember one thing she said). She also said that her mentor Norman Latov just wrote a book on neuropathy. (I'm going to look this up).

Oh, then I asked her about Srojens and Alan said "what the heck is that" and she said "I'm testing him for that, it's in one of those blood tests".

She ruled out Amyloiditis (sorry for the spelling). She said "no, he doesn't have that."

She does indeed know what she was doing. It was a very very long test and she was very thorough.

And alan got a nice head massage with vitamin E. She had to run out to get some special needles for the test and she saw me treating his psoriasis and said 'do you do housecalls?" I laughed. I told Alan, "I'll never get you on a table like this so let me work on your ears. He has psoriasis around his ears and his eyebrows. When she came back she saw his skin was nice and pink and I did put a little of her vitamin e on his face and she said "nice job".

then she she saw me massage him so he could relax during the nerve conduction test she asked us "how long are you two married". I said 26 years. She smiled.

She doesn't think Alan's neuropathy is autoimmune but she needs to review the blood tests. She believes there is something going on in his body that might be impinging something. Alan just said "I just want to know". She said "well, we are doing all we can to get to the bottom of this"

So Alan will have blood tests next tuesday and our next appointment with Dr. Goldfarb is on January 22. Maybe sooner if the blood tests come back.
So you know I'll update all of you when I know anything.
Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Alan does have something auto-immune going on in his body because his psoriasis is getting worse and it's on his eyebrows almost to his eyes but I have been putting a little vitamin e oil and the one on his eye went away a week ago. So that's good. He has it bad on his legs and arms and elbows.
he uses clobetasol but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

So we have to wait and see. But his face, eyebrows and ears are nice and pink now. And they don't burn. I use gentle stuff on him.

so I shall update.
bye for now,