This is the first time I have posted anything, so I am probably doing something wrong.
I just had a weird health experience. Starting about 2-3 months ago I started getting a weird tingling in my arms, hands, legs and feet. Like you get when you sit on them and they "fall asleep". I also had gotten glasses just about 6 weeks ago also. I had a problem with that also, because the prescription seemed to have kept changing. The second optometrist I went to wanted me to get a health checkup to rule out diabetes. I did some research on the internet about the tingling and numbness, and some of the possibilities were diabetes, MS, vitamin B12 deficiency. This tingling was kind of really starting to bug me, so I set up a doctor’s appointment for a general checkup and to explain the weird tingling symptoms. I’m 55 and I hadn’t been to a doctor in 5 years and probably10 to15 years before that. The last time was just for a general checkup, I had turned 50 and I guess I thought it would be a good idea. The doctor I set up the appointment with is a doctor that took over the practice of the other doctor I went to before. They are internal medicine doctors. I have spent more on my dog at the Vet in the last 4 years than I have ever spent on my self ever in 55 years. So if I go to a doctor, then it must be important. They set up an appointment for 2 weeks in the future. Just about that time I had gotten my 2nd set of glasses. I came home after dark, like the second day I had them and I say to myself. "I haven't seen stars in 15 years, I wonder what they look like?" So I tip my head back and look at the stars, and I blacked out. Not bad, I didn't hit the ground. OK, this is not normal!! Over the next 2 weeks waiting for the doctor visit, the tingling gets really bad and starts to even hurt to the point of sharp shooting pains. Arms, hands, legs, and feet are affected. I would tap my hand and I would have this very intense shooting tingling feeling shoot up my arm. I blacked out a couple more times, when I tilt my head way back. That happens when I have to look thru the bottom of the bifocals when something is above me. Very weird.
OK, so I have the checkup. She does the usual poking and prodding; she takes a long time listening to something about my breathing. Asked a bunch of questions. One being had I been shuffling and had I had a problem with coordination. Well...I had been. So she assigned all these tests. Blood, a brain scan, chest x-ray, and more. I, of course thought this very extreme. But my body was really freaking out with pain, so I agreed to do them. Did the blood test, and a week later did the MRI, x-ray, and more. During that week things got really extreme, I lost all feeling in my right hand, right foot and the pain was getting very distracting. I was actually getting kind of worried. I was going to call the doctor and tell her that things were getting really bad. And the follow up appointment was still 2 more weeks away.
OK here is the really weird part; the evening after the tests, the hands and feet are numb, lots of pain. I'm taking off my socks and my hand brushes the bottom of my foot. I feel something in my heel. I look, and my comment to myself is "Oh my god, my foot is so numb that I don't feel a nail sticking in the bottom of my foot!!!" I go get my Swiss army knife and go into the bathroom. There is no pain, actually no feeling at all. I cut out some skin around it and take the tweezers and pull it out. I was about 3/4" inch long. My first thought as to what it was, is a pine needle. I look at it and throw it towards the trash, not paying to much attention. I get up and take a couple steps, and freeze in my tracks. All the pain, tingling and numbness had gone away, just like that. "NO WAY!!!!!!" It couldn't have been that. But it was. Really, really weird. I waited a day to call the doctor, she hadn't seen the tests yet, and hasn’t called me back yet. She said also very weird. It makes sense, that it would be a pine needle, occasionally on Sunday mornings I go down the driveway to get the Sunday paper, without shoes on and there is a pine tree there. That’s the only time I can think that I don't have any shoes on. Can't believe this went on for 2-3 months. Weird. Anyway all seems good. I haven’t spoken with the doctor yet about the tests, just cost me a bunch, to pay for the deductible, and really cost Blue Cross a lot. I think the MRI was $3,000.00 by it self. So that is my weird story of the day. Any body have any ideas. The pine needle was pushing in my heel directly under where the full weight of my leg bone comes down. I can’t find it yet, because when I flicked it towards the trash, I wasn’t paying any attention to where it was going. So I’m not 100% sure it was a pine needle, but I’m 98% convinced. Any body have feed back on how anything like that could cause so much disruption in my nervous system.