Hello Maura @mauras, Welcome to Connect. Thank you for the private message. I hope you don't mind but I thought I would respond to your private message in this discussion so that you can meet other members who share your symptoms - Neuropathy: Numbness only, no pain (https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/neuropathy-numbness-only-no-pain/). I apologize for such a long response and hopefully you will correct me if I misstate anything you told me in your private message.

You mentioned your journey started about 15 years ago being diagnosed with sensory Guillain-Barre syndrome which was treated with a high dose of IV methylprednisone. You mentioned the treatment cleared up your symptoms within days and the doctor suspected a bad respiratory virus had kicked off the immune response. It occurred again about a year later and the same treatment cleared it up again.

You also mentioned having a work up with a new neurologist and after having a normal EMG the neurologist was able to compare a skin punch biopsy from 15 years ago to a current one she ordered. The result of the new skin punch biopsy was that you have small fiber neuropathy.

If I read your message correctly, your main concern is not your condition has slowed you down and you can no longer do some of the things the way you used to be able to do them. Your main worry is that along with your current symptoms, you will start having more pain and you wanted to know if I could share my thoughts and perspective. I am more than happy to share my thoughts and perspective as someone who had that same fear of my condition getting worse. Actually that is what finally drove me to setting up an appointment with a Mayo neurologist for a diagnosis after 20+ years of living with the numbness getting a little worse each year. My worse fear was not being able to drive anymore. After my meeting with the neurologist and being told there aren't any magic bullets (topicals, creams, medications, etc.) that will help with the numbness like they can with pain, I went away pretty discouraged. I decided I needed to do my own research and learn as much as I can about my health conditions which is what led me to Mayo Clinic Connect and started me on my journey learning about neuropathy. I was also fortunate enough to have been a member of the Minnesota Neuropathy Association before it disbanded a few years ago. It was good to have a local support group and be able to talk about your symptoms and what has helped as well as what didn't help.

My best suggestion that I can offer you is to take each day one at a time and learn as much as you can about your symptoms and condition. My two favorite sites for neuropathy information:

-- Neuropathy Commons: https://neuropathycommons.org/
-- The Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy: https://www.foundationforpn.org/
-- Google Scholar for finding medical research information: https://scholar.google.com/

On another note, your mention of GBS starting your journey but being cleared up with methylprednisone made me curious and I found some information from 2020 that may spark your interest.
-- A Rare Case with New Insights: Pure Sensory Guillain Barre Syndrome with Axonal Features: https://www.dovepress.com/a-rare-case-with-new-insights-pure-sensory-guillain-barre-syndrome-wit-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-IMCRJ

One of the things I know can cause a lot of fear in folks is searching the Internet and finding worst case information that may or may not be credible. There is a lot of misinformation on the Internet so job one for all of us is to make sure the information is from credible sources. There is a good discussion on this topic here - How do you identify trustworthy health information?: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/how-do-you-identify-trustworthy-health-information/

Have you looked into any alternative therapies or made any lifestyle changes to help with your symptoms?