No Numb Feeet = No Diabetic Foot Pain?
 

My endo told me since my feet are not numb my feet pain (burning / stinging,etc) is not related to my being a diabetic :confused:

I am taking 2,400mg's of Gabapentin a day (800mg x 3 times) and it barely helps :(

He wants me to see a Neurologist so tests can be done to figure out why my feet hurt (but are not numb).

What's going on here? It was my hurting,stinging,burning feet that forced me into seeing a Dr and after blood test i was confirmed a type 2 diabetic.At that time i bought a meter and my readings were 200's in the morning and high 300's - 400ish at night.

Since taking Metformin and Jauniva i rarely see 200 readings unless i really mess up :o

My feet are not numb but they are VERY sensitive and sting / burn all the time.....

Any others who feet are not numb but have feet pain?

Thx......

The start
 

I do believe, that PN can progress from where you are at, with the burning pain to numbness. The numbness can, but not always, result from the dying back of the nerve endings in the feet. For some, the pain of PN can stay at the stage you are now feeling. Some actually welcome the dying back of the nerves...just to stop the burning pain.

You can have burning, stinging & numbness caused by elavated blood sugars even at prediabetic levels, if at some time you can get your sugars back down to normal ranges there is a good chance they can heal, it takes time though, nerves heal very slowly, mine took a total of 5 years, the numbness took the longest.
Metformin depletes b12 levels, B12 is important for nerve health so i would take some b12 supplements, R - lipioc acid helped me with the burning but it also can lower sugar levels, something to watch out for, another good supplement for diabetic neuropathy is [GLA] Gamma-linolenic acid at 480 mg daily.

good luck

I agree with Brian
 

and, he is one who has been able to cope far better than most of us! Especially about this sort of thing! He is wise in this quarter as is Mrs D about the various vitamins that can help us heal.
There are no quick fixes that I know of? No 'pills' to make you better and call the doc in a week scenarios.
Follow a good program of B-1 and B-12 supplements [avoid B-6 if you can?] and do keep in mind that it can take minutes for nerves to die, but years for them to heal.
I myself have a severe auto-immune neuropathy and as Jackatak stated things can and do go quite dead! But, with advice from good folks here I am still walking, and kicking butts or the like.
When I had my onset? The pain was excruciating! Amputation was looking like a good alternative. Then it abated to a sort of dead-ness.
My ultimate opinion [worth nothing really, but for experience] is that as long as you can feel ANYTHING? it's a good thing!
Go and read the 'stickies' at the top of the page and learn from the collective intelligence of the real pro's here!
Know that you are UNDERSTOOD here and don't be afraid to ask questions.
Hope and common sense always prevails! - j

I'd ask that endo to explain how you are meant to feel pain with numb feet.

My feet are numb, and 'not feeling' is definitely a problem as I can injure myself without realising it. Feeling pain is a thing of the past. My die back process has reached my knees, and is starting in my hands (which are about the same distance from my spinal chord as my knees, which is why die back progresses to the hands once it reaches the knees).

cheers

raglet

And--
 

--that doctor is asinine, having no understanding of the myriad symptoms that can attend peripheral neuropathy, especially if it involves the smaller, unmyelinated fibers that subsume the sensations of pain and temperature.

Diabetic neuropathy, in particular, through dysregulation of the nitric oxide pathways, often preferentially attacks the smaller fibers. Certainly numbness can be one result, but so can burning, stinging, lancing pain; electric shock feelings; sensations of something on the skin when nothing is there, pain out of proportion to offending stimuli (allodynia), and a whole set of parastheses ("beyond normal feelings").

A has been mentioned, numbness often represents a complete dying of the nerves, whereas pain often indicates damaged nerves that have not (yet) completely stopped transmitting signals, but are garbling and misinterpreting them. (Healing nerves that are regrowing and fighting through tissue can also often be painful for a while, until the brain learns to reinterpret the signals.)

Have the doctor take a look at these:

http://www.ccjm.org/content/76/5/297.full

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org...56/8/2148.full

There's plenty more, especially if you Google up the name Aaron Vinik, who is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of diabetic neuropathy.