PN can cause osteoarthritis?
 

I just read this on the Cleveland Clinic's web site:
"Other conditions that may lead to the development of osteoarthritis include peripheral neuropathies (diseases of the nervous system) and neuromuscular disorders that put abnormal stress on the joint."
--I'm not sure how helpful it would be to know whether this is true or not, since presumably I'd have to deal with my developing knee arthritis the same way whether it's caused by the PN or not. But I'm wondering if anyone else has heard of this. (I tried searching the site but didn't come up with previous threads about this.)

I have not heard anything about this but it makes sense since my PN is from a hereditary neuromuscular disorder, (CMT), and I have severe arthritis in my spine, knees, hands and hip at 51.

Yes, I guess it does make a kind of perverse (or cruel?) sense. This disease has so many ways to keep us down (or try to)!

I'm sorry to learn that you're facing severe arthritis in addition to the other symptoms. And yet you take walks and generally keep on truckin'! I've learned during my short time on this blog that lots of folks have multiple problems, but yours seem particularly challenging, and yet you're always helpful to others and strong-minded about your situation. Thanks.

Thank you. My biggest secret is a doctor ten years younger than me who has promised to work with me on pain management for the long haul since my neurologists couldn't do anything. I wouldn't be able to get out of bed without pain meds, but I still have a husband and three sons at home, a married daughter with toddler who comes home to "rest", and my oldest son who comes home for long visits from his teaching job in China. They expect a lot. I was supermom.

I do very little compared to what I used to do, a little laundry and cooking, food shopping wipes me out, walking on concrete kills me,but a walk in the woods is my very favorite thing of all, and I would take anything if it allowed me to do that, so I feel very fortunate.

The first move, off the sofa, out of a chair, is excruciating, but as I move it gets easier. I am pretty much ready for bed by seven.

Mine is an untreatable, slowly but inexorably crippling disease, so that part is hard, knowing next year will likely be worse, just as this year is worse than last. My doctor thinks it is time for a wheelchair for big parking lots, theme parks, and museums, and my almost passing out at the Baltimore Aquarium probably confirms this.

I have these huge spaceship sized washer and dryer sitting in my back family room waiting for the plumber to hook them up today, since the stairs are getting too hard for me. The other thing that is difficult is knowing my children will face these problems. At least one son has CMT and my daughter has three ruptured discs and arthritis of the spine at 29.

There are people here who suffer a lot more than I do, with multiple, life threatening, diseases. There are others who live with a lot of fear because they have not been given a definitive diagnosis, and PN causes a lot of scary symptoms. I think that is the hardest thing to deal with, an idiopathic DX. I try to chime in selectively, only if I know something about the topic, otherwise I just read. If the symptoms sound like they could be CMT I will reply because while it is incurable, it is better to really know what is going on. Also with discussions about pain meds. There is a lot of fear mongering about narcotics that I feel called to refute. Lifestyle questions, like Stacy's about exercise, interest me as we all need to find out what helps improve our quality of life, and what doesn't.

I try to avoid controversy. Sometimes I fail.

Hiking in the woods is more important to me than housecleaning, or baking fancy desserts, or entertaining, or most things. I walk with two hiking poles, ankle support boots, and I trip a lot, but it makes my day. Training this German Shepherd puppy is way too much for me,but I am hoping to get a hiking companion out of it, or at least be able to play fetch from a chair in the yard. She shows promise, but these days are just exhausting. I overestimated my strength, something that is happening more often.

Thank you again for your kind remarks. Sorry for the novelette, but I felt like I should provide some context for why I hike when I can barely walk some days.

I hadn't heard it either, but it occurs to me that thee are so many causes of PN. Are they saying/suggesting all PNs cause OA or just certain ones? :Dunno:

Doc

Good question. They clearly indicate that there are many causes of PN, so I'm guessing that they mean to imply something similar about what PN itself can cause. (And if PN always led to OA, I assume I would have heard that from either my neurologist or my orthopedic doctor.) I'd just be interested in learning if a lot of others who post here have had both.

PN & Osteo
 

Hi
my neurosurgeon told me,"when the nerves are not working properly, the muscles get weak, and weak muscles causes osteoarthritis in jts. It makes sense cause if the muscles are weak they cant support the joint, so the jt will wear out quicker.

HAVE had? :rolleyes: I have both, and would love to be in the "had" category (past tense, meaning have no longer)! :D

However, I've had OA much longer than I've had PN. ;)

Doc

Sorry! I'm learning that any form of the past tense is probably inappropriate for this disease and its various ramifications..... And along the same lines, I'm facing a problem that's probably all too familiar to others on this board: how to respond to well-meaning friends and relatives who wish me a speedy recovery and say things like, hope you feel better and better every day....

IMO, Grin & bear it. Say something like, "Thanks, I'm working on it," or whatever works for you. Yes, these folks mean well, but don't & can't understand, and never will unless it happens to them. Hopefully, you do or will have a few very special friends/relatives who you can be frank with, and explain the situation in more detail, or give them some websites/articles whose explanation fits what you'd like them to know.

Other than that, it's like when folks say, "Hi, how are you?" or "How ya doin'?" It's a polite greeting; they don't really want to know in any detail. It's Ok.

We've had some discussions on this subject, though I can't recall or find them at the moment, and I don't want to drag this thread off on that tangent....

Doc