Nerves "fizzling out"

[rendean]

I have had many paresthsias over the past several years. The first ones involved my left arm, thigh and foot. The sensations involved were pain and/or tingling and burning. Recently at PT, the therapist checked for decreased sensation due to my loss of balance. The areas in my foot and on my thigh have decreased or no sensation.

My questions are 1) Does this happen with every area of paraesthia? 2) Has anyone else experienced the same thing?and 3) Is the paraesthia due to the nerves fizzling out, i.e. one last effort at saving the itself?

Thanks,
Ren

[Udkas]

Hi there,
paresthesias seem to be my biggest problem and I must say I have loss of sensation in my thigh as well. Hmmm.. Well they feel different to each other and one doesn't seem to register cold things...lol, I also have loss of sensation in my privates, well decreased sensation might be the right word and at the moment if you have read my posts I have switched from numbness to burning... joy oh joy...

I think that sensory is sensory and motor is motor, I have both sensory component and motor deficiets.. My neuro has also said a lesion in the right place can cause a whole heap of problems but at the moment it is thought thoracic, brainstem and possibly cervical... but I also feel my arm going weaker, I really notice this after I have had a shower and my left leg goes jello after a shower... but I too at the moment seem to be getting lots of burning and pins and needles... i have a large pain component to my symptoms...like electrical bolts etc. but at this given moment burning is troubling me the most I seem to be burning in the back from my bra straps down and the weakness in my left arm is new....sorry ranting but you asked if anyone experienced similar.

Are you diagnosed Ren?  Sorry I forget?  Do you take anything for your burning and is it successful?

Best wishes,
Udkas.

[shoshin]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere, although I'll never find it again, that lack of sensation usually accompanies paresthesias and that they tend to be correlated in some way. I guess it makes a kind of sense, though, in that both are problems of sensory nerves and if some of the sensory nerves out of whack and busily transmitting malfunctioning paresthesias, they can't simultaneously be transmitting actual real sensory signals.

My paresthesias do seem to be accompanied by reduced sensation. I often am more troubled by the latter than the former.

So far as I know, the sensory and motor nerves are independent so sensory damage wouldn't lead to things like weakness, but you could develop both (along with all sorts of other lovely neurological problems...).

FWIW.

sho

[essdipity]

Hi Ren. Jen's right--there's just no predicting.

I don't think that because you are losing sensation it means that your nerves are sputtering one last gasp. That could all change around, as lesions heal at least partially, and you could get a different paresthesia in the same place. I think (not sure of this) that sensory nerves tend to be bundled together, and thus a single lesion in the right place can cause all different kinds of sensations, including none.

Hang in there.
ess

[jensequitur]

Paresthesias indicate that something is wrong with the nerves... which means that everything attached to the nerves will also experience problems.  Sometimes the damage continues, and you'll end up with weakness in one or more muscle group attached to that group of nerves.  Sometimes the damage stops, and things heal up.  There's really no way to predict which way it's gonna go!