Numbness question

Kristin
My son, Ryan has CIDP and both of hs feet are pretty much paralyzed. He can’t move them. Toes he can move slightly but you really have to be looking to see it. He does have some feeling on diferent parts of his feet like you do. if your poke him with a pin he doesn’t feel it unlessyour above the ankle. but if you touch him with your hand he can feel it in some places on his feet but not every where. you wiggle his toes he can’t tell you what way their pointing but he can feel a touch in some places below the ankle. so its weird but he has the same feeling in his feet as you do. hit and miss so to speak.

Rhonda

its patchy for me – I can’t feel the top or front of my leg but I can feel the bottom and back of my leg

hey,

Think about what CIDP is and how it works..

Your immune system attacks then myelin sheath, the covering around the nerve itself. As the nerve axon becomes demyelinated, it becomes dysfunctional.

Each nerve has an end (receptor) which receives a signal and tyransmits it to the spinal cord, and then up to the brain. Each nerve pathway is completely it’s own, kind of like you having your own road going to work, nobody else on the highway, just you.

Now imagine that your own highway has a bridge out. You wreck, your car goes off the road, you blow the horn… etc, etc.

The longer the nerve pathway is, like all the way to your toes, or to your ankles, etc the greater the opportunity for your immune system to knock out a bridge and foul up the signal.

so, the nerves that feed the areas farther away from the spinal cord, the greater the liklihood of damage. Whether it is toes, the top of the feet, but not the bottoms, the muscles, or sensory, spotty or complete, it is USUALLY more prevalent farther along the way, and less severe closer to the spinal cord, because the pathways are shorter and have less exposure.

In each of us, you never know exactly what roads will get torn up, what nerves will be damaged. as a result, each of us experiences CIDP a little differently. Demyelination happens in different places, and produces slightly different symptoms.

For me, the feet are probably 98% numb, but the muscles and tendons ache and hurt. Like Julie, patchy going up the legs, and the symptoms diminish as you go up the legs. Arms and hands are slightly less than feet/legs.

I hope I am not too confusing. It is late
Dick S

yes dick your right about everyone is different. My feet hurt all the time. They hurt when i am sitting in a chair, when i am driving. I don’t know if its because i bend my legs at that time.