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Does this sound like Neuropathy?
I have very strange pains on my right side. Hip pain on the outside and lower back pain which can go up to mid back. It also hurts up to the side of my body where my lower rib area is and my ribs will sometimes be in extreme pain and will feel like it is inflamed or swollen.
I have wondered if I have a gallbladder issue but I don't think I do but I will go to my GP to check.
The worse the pains get the more widespread the pains are - they extend to my shoulder and up to my neck and upper back, and the constant niggling sciatica type of pain that I have down my leg and under my foot becomes even worse.
The pains are accompanied with weakness feeling on my right side especially round my hip and it is sometimes difficult to get up from a chair - the mechanics of that is all on my left leg and my right leg feels weak and painful.
I have had back scans and hip xrays and bloods done but I've never quite found what this is. I read about neuropathy and thought - that sounds like me, especially proximal neuropathy.
I have always felt there is a connection to my diet and the pain gets unbearable if I continue indulging in eating biscuits, cakes, sweets etc and after a few days of a clean diet with no sugar and low-ish fat and carbs diet, the pains reduce dramatically.
I was prescribed naproxen in the past and diagnosed with bio-mechanical issues - that just does not explain all this as far as I am concerned and the naproxen does give relief when it is at it's worst - as if my body is inflamed in these moments. It's the weird correlation with my diet that I just cannot shake - but it is difficult to get anyone to understand or take notice of this element.
Also when the pains are really bad I get brain fog and feel like I'm not involved in life - just trying to survive the day and when I take deep breaths it is as though I can't breath deeply and feel like there is a huge tightness in my right lower rib area.
When the pains are in a reduced state I can do some jogging and weight lifting, but when I am in pain I can forget about that as jogging hurts my back worse and I feel too weak to lift any weights.
Does this sound at all like neuropathy? Thanks everyone.
Regards
Dave.
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Also, I find that I have stomach issues and bloating and some slight constipation / IBS issues when I get a flare up - tried low FODMAP and that diet helps and goes hand in hand with a "clean" diet ..... also I find tea especially, and coffee to a degree gives me more pain or stomach upset so i avoid tea and only coffee about three times a week. I drink green tea other times and sometimes decaf green tea.
Hello Dave @dave11, Welcome to Connect. Here's some information on the symptoms of proximal neuropathy that may provide some answers:
"Can neuropathy affect one side of the body?
Proximal neuropathy is a rare and disabling type of nerve damage in your hip, buttock, or thigh. This type of nerve damage typically affects one side of your body and may rarely spread to the other side. Proximal neuropathy is more common in men than in women and more common in people older than age 50."
--- Proximal Neuropathy: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/preventing-problems/nerve-damage-diabetic-neuropathies/proximal-neuropathy
You might want to check out the following discussion on similar symptoms while you wait for others to respond:
-- Complete left side pain, from top to bottom.:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/complete-left-side-pain-from-top-to-bottom/
Have you had a chance to discuss your symptoms/thoughts with your doctor?
@johnbishop Thank you so much for replying. I have searched everything online to research my pains and even had MRI scans to check for inflammatory arthritis but I'm non the wiser really and have been living with this for years. When I stumbled upon Neuropathy online it seems to fit exactly my symptoms.
There are a couple of things though that may not fit - I feel a strong link with food choices. A clean totally healthy diet seems to keep inflammation down but if I eat sugary bad fat foods I get the symptoms. It can take sometimes an accumulation of days of eating a bit of rubbish food for it to kick in and I can feel it building up until it seems to blow out in severe pain. Every time it does I go all in on a clean diet, cut out tea and coffee, use a accupressure mat lying on it on my back and after a few days of this I can feel a relief of things like pain, swollen feeling in my body etc.
It is weird.
Secondly I do get relief I think from Naproxen - neuropathy doesn't do this? Or is it the inflammation aspect that is at work here?
Thanks.
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1 Reaction@dave11 I have no medical training or background but do believe that Naproxen may be helping with nerve pain from inflammation but that's just from what I've read. I shared my neuropathy journey in another discussion here - https://connect.mayoclinic.org/comment/310341/.
I also like sweets and sugary foods but it's a double edge sword for me also. Changing my lifestyle and getting my weight under control has helped me slow or possibly stop the progression of my idiopathic small fiber peripheral neuropathy. I have never been diabetic but I've always been in the pre-diabetes category and it's only been since 2016 when I joined Connect that I figured out that I had to change my eating habits, lose some more weight and maintain a healthier lifestyle. I got a little more serious about what I needed to do after learning about the metabolic syndrome which doctors don't seem to emphasize how bad it can be for folks in the pre-diabetes category. Here's a couple of research papers if you want to learn a little more about it.
-- The metabolic syndrome – What is it and how should it be managed?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2047487319886404
-- A comprehensive definition for metabolic syndrome
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675814/
-- The Metabolic Syndrome and Neuropathy: Therapeutic Challenges and Opportunities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3881591
Hello,
So sorry for what you’re going through.
Just wondering whether or not you’ve had tests for peripheral neuropathy. If not, you definitely should, at least to either rule it in or out, so you can narrow things down to hopefully find a cause.
Wishing you the best.
Take care and have a serene weekend ahead,
gus
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1 ReactionYour symptoms sound nothing like mine, My first symptoms (nearly 15 years ago) were mostly about balance, like spilling coffee as I walked with a full cup from staff room to classroom, not being so nimble as I 'skipped' barefoot over the exposed tidal rocks along the south coast, the sensation of wearing socks in bed when I was bare footed.
Now, my balance and general muscle strength are much worse and I have night cramps in my legs periodically. When this happens, I have to get out of bed and o 20-30 heel raises. I take 1000IU Magnesium daily. I am lucky that I rarely have severe pain.