Anybody know anything about numbness in legs/nerve damage?

[Cookie monster]

This is kind of pissing me off, i woke up last week and my lower leg and foot were tingly and numb.
At best i have about 40/50% of the sensation in it i normally have which is worrying to say the least,

Only got to see the doc today and he has no idea, wants to send me off for tests which is doctor speak for i don't have a clue.
I'm thinking it may have something to do with that foot being crushed by a steel girder last year, took a few months to heal and i thought it was back to normal give or take.

Anybody had a crush injury that came back to cause problems or am i on the wrong track?

It kind of makes me laugh tho it's a great example of the health care system over here.
If it was one of my dogs the my vet has a brand new practise with state of the art diagnostic equipment.
I pay 50 euro to see the doc and get hit with a tiny rubber hammer and sent for tests which will cost more money.

 

[WheelsOG]

Any chance it could be a bulging disk in your lower back?

 

[Cookie monster]

Any chance it could be a bulging disk in your lower back?

I'm afraid not, never had any back probs and it's one of the things the doc ruled out..

On the lighter side watching me walk is quite funny step plod step plod...

 

[-StashBastard-]

I know it sucks but I would make sure to follow up with the testing and let a doctor diagnose this correctly.

That said, It sounds like you have some compression of a nerve from your injury, most likely the sciatic nerve.


The sciatic nerve enables movement (motor function) and feeling (sensory function) to the thigh, knee, calf, ankle, foot and toes. Other complex nerve structures are involved; the peroneal nerves and tibial nerves. The peroneal nerves originate from the nerve roots at the fourth and fifth lumbar spine (L4-5) and first and second levels of the sacrum (S1-2). After the peroneal nerves leave the pelvis, they travel down the front and side of the leg, and along the outer side of the knee, to the foot.




I have a fractured vertebrae and 2 herniated Discs. The instability in my spine and severe stenosis causes me severe sciatica every day.

Considering where we are discussing this, you know the best medicine to help with this pain.

But please follow up with your doctor and see what you can do to work on this. Left alone it could get worse and do permanent damage.

Good luck

 

[accessndx]

Cookie: I know almost certainly that it's either a peripheral mononeuropathy or polyneuropathy. The term is called periperhal neuritis. It is definitely NOT your sciatic nerve because it doesn't go all the way down to the foot. More than likely you've injured your superficial peroneal sensory nerve, or your peroneal motor nerve....or your tibial nerve....or possibly some of the branches off the tibial nerve into the foot (the plantar nerves).
The test your doctor is going to send you for is called an electrodiagnostic test. This involves potentially two things: 1) An electric assessment of the nerves conducting electrical flow. This is sort of like an E.K.G., but instead of getting electrical signals from the heart, they will be artificially inducing an electrical current through the nerves they suspect are damaged. If a few volts get put in on one end, and it doesn't come through the same way on the other: bingo...you've diagnosed a problem with that nerve.
2) The second portion of the test may not be performed, but then again you can never tell...it's called and EMG...or Electromyography...this is a small needle that is inserted into the muscles in the foot and leg. Electrical information is gathered by sampling the muscles to see if the nerves that are potentially injured have lead to "atrophy" or shrinking of the muscles they are attached to.

Since you've had a direct and crushing injury to the lower extremity, it would be logical to assume there is some damage still resident there causing your symptoms. As SB eluded to above, these nerves DO come from your back...but based upon what you doctor is ordering and based upon the history and mechanism of your injury....it is MOST LIKELY A PERIPHERAL PROBLEM UNRELATED TO YOUR BACK.

That being said, a thorough doctor would check them both out by performing a slightly broad version of the same test I described above.

Good luck. If you have any serious questions PM me.....

Do yourself a favor and start taking Vitamin B complex....and follow the directions on the label. When peripheral nerves are damaged, they need copious amounts of this stuff to repair themselves. Even someone with the BEST diet in the world does not get enough to handle normal biological processes and deal with the healing process simultaneously. Take it until your urine turns bright yellow...and continue to take it for approximately 1 month. Then you can taper down to more normal levels. Little or no chance of it being excessive because it's a water soluble vitamin and you'd just urinate out the extra that you don't need.

Not sure you're really going to enjoy that test, but honestly it's the exact one I'd prescribe for you if you were sitting in front of me.

:friends:

 

[Cookie monster]

Thanks for that stash, that was one of the possibilities he mentioned tho he said he was unsure as i have more feeling on the sole of my foot than the top of it.

Sorry to hear you fractured your vertebrae sounds nasty, have a friend who the same thing happened and a fair bit more in a bad bike crash, poor guys on permenant disabillity.

 

[Stoner4Life]

sounds like compression of nerves in the L5 bro,
have it checked w/MRI's on work comp$ budget.

 

[-StashBastard-]

It is definitely NOT your sciatic nerve because it doesn't go all the way down to the foot. More than likely you've injured your superficial peroneal sensory nerve, or your peroneal motor nerve....or your tibial nerve....or possibly some of the branches off the tibial nerve into the foot (the plantar nerves).

:friends:

I was told by my Neurosurgeon that the Sciatic nerve does indeed extend all the way into the foot. There is also documentation online stating this.

I have severe shooting sciatic pains from my buttocks down both legs and to the very tips of my toes.

The pain he described seemed very much like my sciatic issues, and I still believe its most likely. Be it sciatic, peroneal or tibial, he still needs his doctor to properly diagnose and set him up with treatment.

 

[johnipedestran]

good sir

the "pain" from the sciatic nerve can travel to the foot.

The actual nerve itself does NOT extend to the foot.

Actually Access is right on but the diagnosis really does not matter. Neuropathy, caused by poor circulation, grievous injury, chemotherapy, or alcohol does not matter. what matters is what can be done to fix it.

problem is the real answer is not a whole hell of alot. Assuming our internet diagnosis is the correct one, you may get some benefit from drug therapy like Neurontin or Cymbalta (or maybe even our friend THC)

peace
jip

 

[cannabowl]

Spinal Stenosis?

 

[iGro4Me]

I have had several invasive knee surgeries and have had nerves cut during the process leaving me with hardly any touch/feeling sensation medial-tibial(front & outside portion), below the knee.

The nerves do regenerate, but extremely slowly....My question would be, did you have sensation after your injury and then suddenly (or gradually) lose it once again ?

 

[Trying-to-blend]

Um, i might be shooting in the dark, but coming from a family history of it, and also from a family of doctors who thought i'd be "educational" to read me medical text books while they studied whilst i was a baby, and whose only reading material in the toilet groing up was JAMA and other assorted medical journals, could it possibly just be bad circulation?

Everone jumps to physical injuries, but seeing as you're not acutally feeling pain, just numbness and tingling, it is very possible it's poor circulation, due to arterial conditions or diabetes or any number of common and manageable reasons. Just go get the tests.

And where you at? I thought european health care was socialized?

 

[accessndx]

I was told by my Neurosurgeon that the Sciatic nerve does indeed extend all the way into the foot. There is also documentation online stating this.

I have severe shooting sciatic pains from my buttocks down both legs and to the very tips of my toes.

The pain he described seemed very much like my sciatic issues, and I still believe its most likely. Be it sciatic, peroneal or tibial, he still needs his doctor to properly diagnose and set him up with treatment.

StashB: I understand you're just helping here. I'm not going to get into a huge discussion of anatomy and semantics. Suffice to say there is a condition called "Sciatica" and it's been discussed in a number of different ways that only add confusion to the nomenclature.

The Sciatic nerve is a huge bundle of nerves that originates from different levels of nerves from your Lumbar Spine. When people have "back injuries" i.e.-"slipped/herniated" discs.....it can cause irritation to one or more of those nerves that come out of the back. Since they eventually all wind into the Sciatic nerve......a person can develop "Sciatic-like" symptoms. It's actually psuedo-sciatica. Really what those people are experiencing has little or nothing to do with the actual Sciatic nerve....and instead have something called "Lumbar Neuritis"....which can develop into a "Lumbar Radiculopathy".

The ONLY TIME a person actually develops TRUE Sciatica is when they have direct injury to or pathology of the SCIATIC nerve, which starts by your hip.
One of the conditions that can cause this is something called "Piriformis Syndrome". Essentially this is where the muscle around the hip becomes spasmodic and can compress or irritate the Sciatic nerve itself.

That and ONLY that is considered true Sciatica. However, because these nerves all come from and essentially go to the same place most people including other doctors have a hard time differentiating these different issues.

By the time your Sciatic nerve gets down to about the knee level, it is NO LONGER the Sciatic nerve...instead it splits into the Tibial and Peroneal nerves and later splits into others.

I would agree that sometimes people have back and/or hip related issues that can simulate numbness, tingling, pain, hyperesthesia, hypoesthesia, dysesthesia....etc.....and it can occur in the foot.

That being said......and based primarily upon his past history of having an extremely traumatic ankle/foot injury...his symptoms are MOST likely from damage to the nerves in that region.

Of course there is SOME likelihood that he may have what is called "Crush" or "Double Crush Syndrome"....that is to say that he may in fact have issues with the nerves in his back or near his hip.....and since the nutrients, blood and everything the most distant nerves need to stay healthy come from where the nerve starts......any damage to nerves in the periphery may be magnified and result in prolonged symptomotology distally.

I've seen this with patients that think they have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome....they've thought it's just about their wrists...when in fact I've personally seen a plethora of contributions from the neck, shoulder and elbow region where these nerves can be secondarily damaged...

At any rate: it's appreciated you're attempting to help. I think the best course of action at this juncture is for the test to be conducted and let the cards fall where they may. If there is some issue related to his back, hip or ankle/foot it should be evident when that is performed. Prior to that, it's only speculation.

Everone jumps to physical injuries, but seeing as you're not acutally feeling pain, just numbness and tingling, it is very possible it's poor circulation, due to arterial conditions or diabetes or any number of common and manageable reasons.

FYI: Diabetes and other metabolic conditions that cause neuropathy and/or circulatory problems do not TYPICALLY isolate one individual limb....
Instead the issues tend to be symmetrical and affect multiple limbs simultaneously. That's the hallmark of those types of disorders....not a unilateral presentation. Poor circulation is pretty much the same animal.....when people have poor circulation for metabolic or other systemic reasons...it generally affects alot more than one foot per se. Additionally, people with egregiously poor circulation...enough to create numbness like he's described....would also be evidenced by palpatorily cold skin, potentially loss of hair in the affected limb and a number of different and somewhat obvious visual changes to the skin. It's NOT a bad thought...but it would be more likely an appropriate clinical thought if he had this in both feet and legs...or both hands and forearms. "Stocking and glove" paresthesias are pathognomonic presentations of diabetic peripheral neuropathy.