Telepathic Neurons?
My toes are often numb while at the same time, painful. This is the way peripheral neuropathy works. I have had it much worse than this in the past, back when I was taking Velcade to combat Multiple Myeloma. It got bad enough it confined me to a wheelchair.
Peripheral Neuropathy is an affectation of the nervous system. It causes the body to experience inappropriate sensations. Which, as I said above, can combine more than one sensation. With Velcade I experienced extreme cold, burning, numbness, painful ache and pins and needles all at the same time. Today I feel numbness and pain, and often my feet feel chilly when they are more than warm to the touch. Th reason I feel this now, almost a year after I stopped Velcade is that I also took Revlimid, another type of chemo, in recent weeks. It caused the neuropathy to flare up again almost immediately. The difference between Velcade and Revlimid is that peripheral neuropathy from the Revlimid is permanent. I’m expected to keep these sensations for the rest of my life. It is one of the unfair trades that cancer wrecks on patients. We can choose to try to extend our lives, or we can be comfortable. There is no in-between.
When I first hear the expression “peripheral neuropathy” I thought of telepathic neurons, terribly confused from hearing everything elses thoughts in addition to their own, and finally going crazy. It turns out that’s not so far from wrong. My neuronic brains have been scrambled and they are going to stay in Na Na Land forever. I can’t depend on the sensations I feel in my feet to be accurate. I should be grateful it’s only me feet. When I took Velcade it attacked my hands so badly I couldn’t even hold a pen and write.
All I have to focus on is my feet now, though. And I thank God for that. Having your hands and feet go whacky is at the least, disconcerting. And there are some things I can do to relieve the sensations.
Producing competing sensation is a good way to fool the nerves into dropping their focus on one thing for another. So I massage my feet on beads I lay on the floor. I just roll my feet back and forth over them. It’s quite soothing, especially since it gives me a hiatus from the ugly sensations. The bad stuff comes back quickly, but the moments of respite are wonderful. Sometimes I get my wife to massage my feet. This gives the same effect. Or when my feet feel really cold, I can take a hot shower and overpower the coldness sensations.
When I sleep, I put pillows on both sides of my feet, so that my blanket and sheet are tented and held away from me. This helps a lot. So there are little ways that we can use to get some temporary relief. But neuropathy is the bane of chemo patients and diabetics, and will be around until we get better and more appropriate chemicals to treat our illnesses with.
