Any CIDPers with dry eyes, mouth and horrible nausea?

Kazza,
Yes, they have been there almost since the beginning – congratulations on having your autonomic nerves attacked. Woo Hoo! You’re embarking on a whole new area of fun and interesting symptoms. (sorry for the sarcasm) For your eyes I would suggest looking (or asking) for the gel stuff – it lasts longer than the liquids and sometimes the liquids irritate my dry eyes. I also got a sample of an eye ‘moisturizer” which looks like milk but also has a longer lasting effect than the liquid drops. And I keep a bottle of the liquid drops in the refridgerator so when my eyes are inflammed and painful I can flood them with cool drops.

As for dry mouth – it’s not that big of a deal except that we use our saliva to begin the process of breaking down food. There are enzymes only found in your saliva that you need so you might have some problems with digestion because of this. You can compensate for this by chewing your food more, unless like me you have cranial nerve inflammation that makes chewing difficult or painful. In that case, drag out the blender and go to work on the foods that are tough to chew and digest.

The nausea could have several sources – not producing saliva which leads to not digesting your food properly; damage to the nerves controlling digestive enzymes; damage to the nerves that control peristalis – moving the food through the track; many others including my favorite – STRESS. This might sound horrible but try switching to baby food and/or puree your own food and see if it helps. If it does then it’s likely a digestive problem (enzymes) rather than a muscular problem (peristalis). You could have both of these going on to some mild degree as well. Either way there are medications to help so you shouldn’t have to suffer with nausea – if you can find out what the problem is you can treat the problem directly. There are drugs that help move food out of your stomach more quickly so it doesn’t spoil; there are drugs that can help with enzyme replacement and so on. And even if you never discover what is causing the nausea specifically there are still drugs you can take to get rid of the nausea. Who needs to live like that? Not you for sure!

If these are new symptoms for you and you are still getting treatments then you should let your doctor know – autonomic nerve damage heals very slowly according to my neurologist (if at all) therefore it’s not the kind of thing you want to let slide lest you end up with nausea and dry eyes for the rest of your life.

Take care Kazza and welcome to the world of autonomic neuropathy. :rolleyes:

Julie

I have the dry eyes, mouth, nose, skin, etc. It is caused from Sjogren’s Syndrome, which is an auto-immune syndrome. have you been tested for that?

[FONT=”Arial”][SIZE=”3″]:) Sjogren’s Syndrome is found in the blood. A Rheumatologist can order the blood work. Or, maybe your Neuro, would have insight. There is a very good description on the NIH.org site.
Yes, I have several auto-immune syndromes at present. OH JOY:mad: I got Sjogren’s Syndrome, MGUS, and Fibromyalagia in 2002. Was making a very good recovery with meds and doing extremely well. Going places and doing what normal people do.
In Sept. 2007 started with symptoms in feet, and legs, in Oct with symtpoms in hands and arms and in Nov was dx with CIDP. I’m now on a walker, use a w/c once in awhile, and they are talking about me getting a hoover around scooter. Not able to drive, cook, clean, the list goes on. Thank God for my husband.
I’ve had five IVIG tx and the MD wants me to have one more, if no improvement after April’s IVIG, he will start Plasmsphresis.
Good luck and stay a well as possible.
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