Peripheral Neuropathy?? Need some advice

mlanave

Please bare with me this is long, but I needed to include all the facts.

I'm new here and looking for some advice. I've suffered pretty badly for six weeks now. July 2nd I began to have pain in abdomen and back. It was severe. Several days later I broke out with a rash and went to the dr. I had shingles. Three days later I began to have a lot of difficulty walking. I could barely walk. I had numbness and tingling in my legs as if they were asleep and my legs felt heavy. I shuffled my feet in order to walk. The tingling and heaviness went into my arms and hands as well but I could move them just fine.

I went to the ER and was admitted in the hospital for a week. They thought that I had Gullian Barre Syndrome. The paralysis did not move up. They did two MRIs, an xray and a catscan along with bloodwork. No lumbar puncture because I had shingles. Nothing showed other than a herniated disk they found but said that it was not pressing on a nerve and shouldn't be causing difficulty in my walking. My reflexes are very good in my knees.

The nuerologist told me she thought I had a mild case of gullian barre. I was on percacet, tramadol and gabapentin for pain. The pain was in my abdomen, side and back from the shingles. I had not had pain in my legs until two weeks after I came home from the hospital, I suffered an attack in my legs. I began to hurt so badly the pain medication was not helping fully.

I now have stabbing pain in my legs, knees, ankles and hips. I have chills that run down both of my legs. I have lost some sensation in my legs up to my knees. I have muscle cramps in my legs and feet. I still have tingling and numbness in my legs and feet but no heaviness. I also have tingling in my hands at times and mild pain in my arms. I have nerve twitches in my legs. I have pain in my lower back and at times in my neck and between my shoulders. I have nerve twitching in my shoulder somtimes but mostly in my legs. I have numbness in the area where my shingles were and still have pain but not as severe or as often. My feet become reddish purple looking when I stand on them too long. I couldn't feel my feet for a few days when this pain began in my legs. The pain was deep in my legs like in the bones and joints. It felt like I was walking on sticks. My walking got worse. I was only shuffling inches. I can't sit or stand for a long time with out being in pain.

About a week ago, the physical therapist was working with me and I started walking with a better form. It's still very slow but improved. The nuerologist saw me last week and told me that I had nueropothy in my legs but that she didn't still think that I had mild gullian barre because my reflexes are still good. I got frustrated because she can't determine why I have this or why I have pain or difficulty walking. She acts as if she is at a loss. I believe that diseases that could cause this have been ruled out now which is positive.

From what I have read, nueropothy does cause a lot of pain as I've described and can cause difficulty in walking. I'm not sure what is going on but it has to do with the shingles because that is when it started. I go in next week to have a brain mri and the next week to have a nerve conduction study done. I'm concerned because I want her to identify the problem so that if I need some type of treatment I can get it. I want to know what's going on and if I can get better from this. I want to know if I will be able to walk again like I did before and if I will recover or if this is something I'm going to have to live with now.

Peripheral nueropothy hasn't been suggested by her but I have all the symptoms except for burning and decreased reflexes. Do you have to have decreased reflexes? That's the reason she doesn't think it's gullian barre now and I fit those symptoms and shingles can cause gullian barre. I failed to mention that I have an underactive thyroid too. It's under control now I believe but I was off meds for months and just recently got it back under control.

I fear the study won't show anything but if it's based on pain then I know it will show it. The pain is not mild it's pretty strong. I don't know a lot about the studies, I'm just scared because they haven't found anything so far and I think they are running out of tests to do on me. I'm only on tramadol and gabapentin now and it barely takes the edge off of the pain. It comes and goes but it occurs everyday and somedays it's worse than others. I was hoping that maybe some of you may know a little bit about this and could give me your thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to read this long story but I wanted to include all the facts