[Judy]

Alstair, I just read the same article. As a matter a fact when I was researching it Wikipedia had information on peripheral polyneuropathy which described my symptoms to a tee. I have numbness in left thigh, electrical shock feeling in the left leg (this happens depending on what type of clothing I wear), I can no longer were any socks but athletic thickness type socks anything thinner will send the electric shocks through my ankles. It also described a sensation like stubbing a toe or hittling a finger with a hammer, sometimes it wakes me up where my big toe on the same side was hit by a hammer, no pain just the sensation. (weird I know). It just described exactly what type of pain and feeling I have. This is only on the left side. It did mention that this is sometimes is caused by acute trauma (including surgery) and all this started after my surgery. The back pain is all gone and now I have this.

This article also listed medications to try and they suggested cymbalta, neurontin, methadone and Tegretol which I never heard of. My doctor wanted me to try the cymbalta for a month along with the neurontin. If I felt relieve from the cymbalta then try backing off the neurontin to see if I would need both or just one.

Basically I can live with this and he said he will just keep trying different medications to see if any of them take this away. People just don't understand nerve pain and how bad it can be sometimes. I wake up in the morning completely pain free, it ususally starts after I am up and moving around and of course going to work and then by 10 am it starts and continues to increase throughout the day.
Well thank you and anyone has any advice please feel free to e-mail me.

Judy