Tag Archives: neuropathy

In case you didn’t know

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I have to say the one year of my kidney transplant came and went last July 29th. I’ve been doing pretty good since. I guess the power of current medical technology is something else. Since the one year mark, things have been going pretty much ok. There are a few things which need to be resolved, but I’m sure things will work out eventually. I’m officially a permanent handicapper now, so I can get all the cool spots and actually be legal about it. It’s surprisingly easy to get a handicap decal. My doctor sent me a form, I signed it and turned it in and just like that I had 2 decals. Crazy I know.

I’ve also been experiencing a lot more pain from the neuropathy. I mean a lot more pain. They’re pretty much in my hands as well as my feet, and there are some days where it’s just take your breath away unbearable. My shoulder has been Really killing me lately from tendonitis in the bicep and rotator cuff. Or something like that. Just another one of those things to chalk up on the board. If my medical record was transcribed onto paper, I swear it would probably be about 6 inches thick. Don’t laugh, I’ve seen medical records that thick. I did work in a hospital when we didn’t have computer medical records, you know.

What will tomorrow bring? Good weather I hope.

Neuropathy

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Today I just wanted to touch on something that’s a daily thing for me. Neuropathy. The reason I wanted to touch on this is pretty simple: I want to know if anyone else has similar issues as me. I don’t expect anyone to have the same conditions as I do exactly. I’ve already been told that it’s unique for me to have all these issues. So I’d like to hear from other diabetics and non-diabetics who have similar conditions to mine.

To start off, I have one of the most common for diabetics, peripheral neuropathy. Basically, I have issues with my nerves in my feet and hands. These damaged nerves in turn cause serious pain. It’s sort of like your foot falling asleep, and the tingling sensation you experience afterwards. Except for me, it’s all the time. On top of that, I get stabbing pains occasionally in the extremities. Well stabbing might not be accurate. It’s more like sharp pains. Like someone is sticking a needle repeatedly into my feet or legs or wherever.

I’m also experiencing numbness in the bottom of my feet. That just means the nerves have died at the most extreme tips. That’s the reason of course for me to walk with a cane because of imbalance. But the imbalance isn’t entirely because of the numbness. But that’s another story.

Next, I also have autonomic neuropathy. This means a various amount of things. Basically in myself, the brain gets confused a lot. How this happens in me is my sweating. When I eat food, I sweat. Yes, it gets to be a crazy thing. It could be 20 below while I’m eating, but I’ll start to sweat while I’m munching on my favorite grub. It can get pretty tiresome after a while.

I also have the same types of pain I have in my extremities in my stomach and chest areas. Basically the entire trunk of my body. Obviously this doesn’t Really fall into the peripheral neuropathy since it’s not peripheral. But hey, it’s still the same. Basically for me, at times it just feels like I’m rolling a vat of needles. The movie Saw comes to mind.

I think I’ve touched on the major things I have due to neuropathy. I’m sure there are more that I never thought were because of neuropathy.

For those of you who are experiencing neuropathy I’d love to hear about your experiences and pains. Perhaps we could compare notes and get some home remedies from each other. Of which I don’t Really have any. I’m just loaded up on Gabapentin (Neurontin).

So. yeah.

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It just seems like everything in this world is going crazy. With the oil crisis in the gulf, I just don’t know what to think of anything anymore. But I won’t talk about that here. This place is all about me.

What’s been going on? Well since I last posted, I’ve steadied out on my gabapentin. It seems that the medication has had enough side effects on me to cause some weird issues. Remember I was talking about my balance and the right side of my body? It’s suspected that the gabapentin is affecting that. Basically, what we’re talking about is that it prevents my brain from doing stuff. Therefore the weird things such as my right side of my body acting slow, the imbalance I feel, and so on. I understand it could be a cause of my headaches as well, but I don’t Really see how. But hey, I’m not the doctor.

Other than that, because of the imbalance and numbing of my feet from neuropathy, I have to walk with a cane when I leave the house. Only when I leave the house because outside the pavement and ground isn’t always level, and I don’t Really have much of a hold on anything out there. Pretty sucky. But my dad got me a cane, and it’s very cool, as you can see from the image to the left.

My neuropathic pain has steadied out to be painful only some of the time, and when I say that, I mean I only get the sharp pains every ten to fifteen minutes. At night, it’s still bad, and I have to get distracted by music in order to get to sleep. I’m sure there are others that must have this extreme neuropathy like me, and I’d love to hear from you. We could compare notes.

The quest to grow my hair for Locks of Love is still continuing. I don’t think it’s quite 10″ braided yet, but it’s getting close. I’m very anxious to get my hair cut back to it’s shortness.

Other than that, recently I got X-rays of right shoulder and right hip to see if there were any physical issues going on with them, since I have pain in my major joints, especially the right side all the time. However, they didn’t find anything at all, so I’ll probably end up getting a shot of steroids in my shoulder so I can heal that with Physical Therapy. Who knows what they’ll do for my hip.

The biggest concerns right now is my sugars. They’ve been running higher than normal, and I haven’t been doing anything different. I’ve gotta get together with my doctor and see what is going on with that. We shall see.

Other than that, we’re coming up on year one of the kidney transplant. It’s quite amazing. Life after transplant has been a bit different. But I’m getting used to it. Sort of.

Life isn’t over because of diabetes.

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So here comes a bulleted post. If you don’t want to continue reading after that, don’t continue to read on. Otherwise, read on!

  1. So I’ve started to increase my dosage of Gabapentin (aka Neurontin) as per the neurologist. My neuropathy is just getting worse every day it seems.
  2. I’ve been considering to just go ahead and keep growing my hair to donate to Locks of Love.
  3. I went to get a bunch of lab tests done, and my A1C was at an all time low I believe. (this is good)
  4. Lately, I’ve been having issues with the right side of my body. I keep thinking it’s residual from my stroke, but it can’t be.

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Diabetic Neuropathy

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Many diabetics might know one of the major things that occur in all of us is Diabetic Neuropathy. What is it though? Basically what happens is some of the nerves are damaged because of the diabetes, and this may cause some tingling, pain, or numbness. This is especially important in the feet. We diabetics should be checking our feet out daily to make sure we don’t have any problems with them.

Neuropathy can cause a number of problems to our feet. Because of the insensitivities, we might not know if there are any cuts, bruises, or otherwise any problems with our feet. Some diabetics have plain said they don’t feel a thing in their feet. That’s not good, because we won’t know if they’re feeling too hot or too cold and as you know, this would cause some serious complications.

It also causes some pain. I get it all the time. Suddenly, my feet will begin to hurt in some random area, and rubbing it sometimes helps. Sometimes the tingling causes sharp pains, kind of like someone sticking a needle into you. This is very common too. Of course, if it gets Really bad, you should probably talk to your doctor just to make sure there’s nothing else going on.

Diabetic Neuropathy, or the tingling/numbing/painful sensations in various parts of your body are going to be common. So please check out your feet daily. You should be doing this each night before you go to bed. Look at them, make sure there’s no cuts or bruises. If there are you need to make sure they are taken care of. Are they getting worse? Are they getting better? Because of the diabetes, remember that your ability to heal a wound is much much slower. If you don’t take care of your feet, there is always the possibility of getting it amputated. I’ve heard of so many people having this done, it’s not something to take lightly.

Make it a part of your day, check your feet.