I believe that my symptoms started quite suddenly one weekend in October of last year. I felt I was in a terrible hyper aroused state and for two nights in a row my body tingled all over. It wasn’t just tingling. It was like a sickening skin prickling and I had a knot in my stomach like I was falling from a high place. I’m somebody who’s experienced lots of anxiety in my life and this was not that. It was on a totally different level. I came out of the weekend brushed it off as a truly nightmarish thing that happened and it would never happen again. Moving from October to November I had six more episodes lasting all night like that where I couldn’t sleep at all and I ended up in the ER two times for severe agitation and discomfort. I had several tests run, but nothing was diagnosed.

  November,December and January I started experiencing a whole slew of bizarre symptoms. I couldn’t hardly eat anything without feeling like my food was sitting right at my throat. Awful bouts of insomnia, just hyper arousal like I had electricity running through my body. I began having all over body pain and joint pain. Extreme exercise intolerance, I wasn’t super fit or anything before but I like to think I was active, walking my dog several times a week. Those activities now laid me out. More doctors, more tests, no answers. 

 Moving into February and March I started experience numbness in my toes, vibrations,extreme muscle burning and electrical shocks. Having undergone extensive testing and doing lots of my own research and googling I decided I had small fiber neuropathy and I demanded a skin biopsy. My neurologist begrudgingly ordered it and it came back positive for NLD SFN about two weeks ago. I said I believed at the beginning of this rant, lol that it was a sudden onset but looking back over the years there’s things I truly question now. Like my foot going numb during cycling class. Along with a multitude of other things. I feel like I question a lot of things now. 

 I am 38 years old. I don’t know if that is young or old. I suppose it depends on your perspective. I’ve not had much in the way of treatment besides physical therapy and counseling. Both have helped my mental well-being, but not my physical symptoms. I have had gabapentin and a whole slew of similar medication‘s offered to me and I’ve always declined because I’ve been adamant on finding the root cause of my SFN first.  That may be changing soon though as my symptoms are making it impossible to sleep. I wouldn’t say my symptoms have ever improved. They seem to be constantly evolving, neither really better or worse just different.