Sleeping at night
 

Most of the stories I have read on this site regarding SFN describe the worst time of day being at night trying to sleep.

Since my SFN reacts differently, i.e. when I lay down it seems to calm down, I was wondering if that indicates anything of value?

Ever since my lumbar decompression surgery back in November, the pain and burning in my feet has gotten much worse. I tried switching from my neurontin (1800-2400 mg/day) to Lyrica (300-450 mg/ day ) to see if that made any difference. I stayed on the Lyrica for 6 weeks and could see no improvement. So now I have switched back to the neurontin, along with tramadol. I can't explain why the sudden increase in pain, actually much worse than ever before in the 14 years that I have been dealing with this. I guess it could be the nerves healing if they were in fact being compressed from the stenosis in my back, but I'm not sure that is the case.

I can no longer use the shoes that I have been using for the last 1 1/2 yrs because of the increased pain and I am having much difficulty just trying to walk. And like I said above, when I get off my feet, they calm down somewhat.

Could all of this just be normal progression? Thanks for any input.

It's great you can sleep....count your blessings, skip the sheep!

I am up a lot at night and sometimes I hate to go to bed.

I also have SFPN and I also take neurontin and I find it does help with the leg pain, before when I was on cymbalta I had a terrible time getting to sleep. It is not as bad now. I do sometimes still wake up in pain and have to take something else or something stronger, I some times take Valium to help me sleep. But without that I would not be able to sleep. I find during the day I can't sleep with all the pain and buzzing going on in my feet and legs and other places as well. maybe at night I am just too tired and I just fall asleep from exhaustion.

Hi,

To answer you - My SFN definitely is better when I lie down and go to sleep - don't have a clue why. It's also not bad at all when I wake up in the morning but acts up more as the day progresses from all the things that can aggravate it - clothing, wind if I'm outside or anything else that sort of grazes the skin.

Sorry yours has been getting progressively worse. Hope you can find relief from either another combination of meds or them plus certain dietary supplements in safe doses, such as B12, B1 (benfotiamine a/k/a thiamine),
R-alpha lipoic acid (safe dose! very powerful anti-oxidant) and not S-alpha because that's the synthetic version.

Best wishes,

Sheltiemom

I have ordered benfotiamine and R-alpha lipoic acid from the US, should be here this week, so hoping they will help.

R Lipoic Acid vs Alpha Lipoic Acid
 

Sheltiemom.....what is the difference between R- alpha lipoic acid and alpha lipoic acid? I got mine at the local drug store but want to make sure I am taking the right thing or getting the most bang for my buck. Please enlighten me.........thanks for your help.

Day vs night
 

I am in the same boat as Sheltiemom. I do better laying down, sleeping and first thing in the morning. Although I will say, I feel like my feet are more stiff after sleeping, almost like walking on wooden feet. After 10 mins or so they are back to normal and I am good to go until around 6pm or so and then the games begin!!

R-lipoic acid
 

--contains only the "right-handed" isomer of alpha lipoic molecules, which is the only one the body uses. Many organic molecules come in both "right-handed and "left-handed" forms, based on the bend angles in the molecular bonds, but the body can only process certain molecular shapes.

Alpha Lipoic contains both isomers, so a certain amount of each dose is wasted--passed through without being biologically active.

What this means is that one can use far less R-lipoic than alpha lipoic for a similar effect--a ration of 1:6 to 1:10 is often cited. This means people who have acidity problems with alpha lipoic can often avoid the worst of that by taking smaller doses of R-lipoic.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipoic_acid