Pretty sure I have Alcoholic Neuropathy (nerve damage from drinking), heard of it?
01-18-2016, 07:23 PM
This post is to serve as a warning and also to see if anyone has any experience/information about this since there is probably many others on this forum who live a similar lifestyle as me. This is a long post but I want to make sure I get in all the details.
So I recently turned 31 and have been drinking alcohol since I was 14 with only about 2.5 years in between with no drink which gives me about 14.5 years drinking total.
My drinking from 14-24 consisted of a mixture of beer and liquor on the weekends mostly (binge drinking) with my fair share of mild blackouts etc but not drinking to the point of not being able to walk.
At 24 I quit drinking until about age 27-28 where I drank mostly beer until now (95% of the time).
About a year ago I started noticing a weird twitching of my right thumb the day after a heavy drinking session which would go away the 2nd day after drinking. I stupidly wrote it off as some temporary hangover shit from dehydration, lack of vitamins or whatever.
Fast forward to the next year (2015) I do almost a full year of traveling, drinking maybe 2-4x a week about 10 beers a night average.
About a week before Christmas I noticed the thumb twitch again and I pointed it out to a girl I was with and she said to look it up on Google to see what it was. I said yea why not, not expecting to find out anything important.
What I saw at first was serious nerve damage stuff (neuropathy) mixed in with some non-serious "dehydration" stuff. I stupidly chose to believe the minor dehydration shit because it always went away on the 2nd day after drinking and never bothered me much, and I already had a year of it happening with no progression and only during heavy nights.
Later that day I felt tingling in my right wrist along with the thumb twitching. I had some weird temporary mosquito bite-style bumps appear on my wrist and lower back at the same time (which I think now was some type of food allergy from the restaurant I was eating at) and I thought the tingling had something to do with that so again I wrote it off after it went away in 15 minutes.
A week later after 3 nights of drinking beer I awake to the thumb twitching again and later its accompanied by more tingling. The thumb was twitching heavier than normal this time and I decided to do some more research online (as I was drinking a beer) to look more into this nerve damage stuff. At this point I started to suspect something more but it was Saturday and I decided to go out one more night and stop the next day until I saw a doctor. Later that night the shit goes away and I go home to sleep.
The next day I was not drinking anything and began to read more online. At the same time I started noticing light tingling in my feet which made me think this could be some sort of "alcoholic neuropathy" based on what I was finding online. At this point I was pretty freaked out and decided to totally stop drinking until I talked to a doctor.
The feeling of tingles in my feet remained for a couple more days but was pretty light and I began to wonder if I was just overthinking everything and perceiving something in my feet that wasn't really abnormal at all. I went out with a new girl that night and decided to have a beer since she wanted to drink and as a test to see if I noticed anything more.
Later that night after the girl leaves I'm sitting on my couch and notice my left foot go partially numb for about 10 minutes. At this point I'm almost positive this is some sort of neuropathy that is being caused by alcohol and now I'm thoroughly bugged out about it.
Over the course of the next couple days the shit gets more intense (with zero drinking) in my feet and by New Years Eve it feels like someone is sticking my feet with needles mixed with a feeling of small worms crawling under the skin of my feet. This isn't the feeling you have when your foot falls asleep but feels more like someone is actually taking a needle and poking you with it fairly hard in random areas of your toes. To relieve some of the mild annoying pain I have to push my feet against something like the ground (when standing) or side of the couch (when laying down).
After reading more stuff online and talking to a couple friends I decided to wait a week to see if the shit would die down and go away. I'm in a foreign country that speaks a foreign language and it was the holidays so if I didn't have to fuck with going to a hospital that would be ideal.
Over the next couple days the needle pricks in my feet get less intense however now the feeling has spread to my fingers, but only about 20% of the intensity of what the feet felt like at the most intense moment. But now I also had this deep uncomfortable pain in the center of both of my arms which really scared me. I actually had a mini break down in my apartment at this point because I felt like the shit was spreading and getting worse and I wasn't sure wtf I did to myself. Thoughts of my wreckless/unhealthy lifestyle from the past 3 years started to flood my mind (lots of condom-less sex with sketchy bitches, lots of alcohol and heavy hangovers, etc).
After a couple days the deep pain in my arms goes away but I still have the random needle pricks and tingles in my hands and feet (less in hands). Also random pains that last 3-4 seconds in other random areas of my body like shoulders, sides etc. Another symptom is the top of my fingers feel like they are sunburned when something touches them. I still have not drank anything more since that one beer about a week prior.
At this point I decide to go to a "good" clinic where I talked to a neurologist with my medium-level Spanish and told her my symptoms and my history of drinking. On the way to the doctor I actually felt some pretty sketchy pain in the side of my face that felt like nerve pain, which I also told her about. She did a bunch of blood tests on me that included glucose, vitamin b12, HIV, and some others.
The tests came back the next day and everything looked good but she said for my age my Vitamin b12 should be around 500+ and it was at 331.8. Vitamin B12 deficiency is what is commonly believed to cause the "alcoholic neuropathy" along with the alcoholic toxins themselves, so I thought OK so now what? She said this "could" be the reason and put me on one Vitamin b12 shot for 5 days and some folic acid pills (Biocobal) for 30 days. She also told me not to drink. I wasn't able to converse with her on the level I would with a doctor who spoke English but I asked her if it was permanent and she told me no it should go away "soon" after I started the treatment. She also had a light vibe and joking a lot of the time so I left the sessions with her feeling fairly optimistic about everything.
During the 5 days of shots I noticed a significant decrease in the symptoms to where I barely noticed it and I thought I was out of the woods and that the shit would go away completely very soon.
I'm now 3 weeks out from the last beer I had and about 2 weeks out from the start of the treatment, still taking the pills. However the symptoms have increased again in the past week since the shots ended and I am now getting random twitching in my toes and thumbs (much more in toes), along with random pricks, pains, and tingling in my arms and feet. I also notice more muscle twitches than normal like in my legs.
I'm able to function normally and go about my day without really thinking about it, but its still annoying that now it feels like its coming back instead of going away.
Anyone have any experience with this fucking shit or know anything about it? It's one of those things that alcohol causes that nobody talks about and you don't hear about it until it actually hits you. I'm nowhere near your typical fucked up looking alcoholic, actually quite the opposite. I'm a fairly young stylish dude who travels, games, and makes decent coin and has no other health issues or major life problems in general. I actually feel great besides this shit, especially after not drinking for 3 weeks.
Maybe it's early still and I need more time for my nerves to heal? Maybe I have some other weird sexually (or non-sexually) transmitted virus that is causing this? Maybe it's permanent and I'm stuck with this? Maybe something else?
Any thoughts, experiences, advice, or insight is welcome. Until then I would recommend anyone else experiencing early symptoms (twitching/tingling of the toes/feet/fingers etc) to evaluate their drinking before it gets worse like mine.
So I recently turned 31 and have been drinking alcohol since I was 14 with only about 2.5 years in between with no drink which gives me about 14.5 years drinking total.
My drinking from 14-24 consisted of a mixture of beer and liquor on the weekends mostly (binge drinking) with my fair share of mild blackouts etc but not drinking to the point of not being able to walk.
At 24 I quit drinking until about age 27-28 where I drank mostly beer until now (95% of the time).
About a year ago I started noticing a weird twitching of my right thumb the day after a heavy drinking session which would go away the 2nd day after drinking. I stupidly wrote it off as some temporary hangover shit from dehydration, lack of vitamins or whatever.
Fast forward to the next year (2015) I do almost a full year of traveling, drinking maybe 2-4x a week about 10 beers a night average.
About a week before Christmas I noticed the thumb twitch again and I pointed it out to a girl I was with and she said to look it up on Google to see what it was. I said yea why not, not expecting to find out anything important.
What I saw at first was serious nerve damage stuff (neuropathy) mixed in with some non-serious "dehydration" stuff. I stupidly chose to believe the minor dehydration shit because it always went away on the 2nd day after drinking and never bothered me much, and I already had a year of it happening with no progression and only during heavy nights.
Later that day I felt tingling in my right wrist along with the thumb twitching. I had some weird temporary mosquito bite-style bumps appear on my wrist and lower back at the same time (which I think now was some type of food allergy from the restaurant I was eating at) and I thought the tingling had something to do with that so again I wrote it off after it went away in 15 minutes.
A week later after 3 nights of drinking beer I awake to the thumb twitching again and later its accompanied by more tingling. The thumb was twitching heavier than normal this time and I decided to do some more research online (as I was drinking a beer) to look more into this nerve damage stuff. At this point I started to suspect something more but it was Saturday and I decided to go out one more night and stop the next day until I saw a doctor. Later that night the shit goes away and I go home to sleep.
The next day I was not drinking anything and began to read more online. At the same time I started noticing light tingling in my feet which made me think this could be some sort of "alcoholic neuropathy" based on what I was finding online. At this point I was pretty freaked out and decided to totally stop drinking until I talked to a doctor.
The feeling of tingles in my feet remained for a couple more days but was pretty light and I began to wonder if I was just overthinking everything and perceiving something in my feet that wasn't really abnormal at all. I went out with a new girl that night and decided to have a beer since she wanted to drink and as a test to see if I noticed anything more.
Later that night after the girl leaves I'm sitting on my couch and notice my left foot go partially numb for about 10 minutes. At this point I'm almost positive this is some sort of neuropathy that is being caused by alcohol and now I'm thoroughly bugged out about it.
Over the course of the next couple days the shit gets more intense (with zero drinking) in my feet and by New Years Eve it feels like someone is sticking my feet with needles mixed with a feeling of small worms crawling under the skin of my feet. This isn't the feeling you have when your foot falls asleep but feels more like someone is actually taking a needle and poking you with it fairly hard in random areas of your toes. To relieve some of the mild annoying pain I have to push my feet against something like the ground (when standing) or side of the couch (when laying down).
After reading more stuff online and talking to a couple friends I decided to wait a week to see if the shit would die down and go away. I'm in a foreign country that speaks a foreign language and it was the holidays so if I didn't have to fuck with going to a hospital that would be ideal.
Over the next couple days the needle pricks in my feet get less intense however now the feeling has spread to my fingers, but only about 20% of the intensity of what the feet felt like at the most intense moment. But now I also had this deep uncomfortable pain in the center of both of my arms which really scared me. I actually had a mini break down in my apartment at this point because I felt like the shit was spreading and getting worse and I wasn't sure wtf I did to myself. Thoughts of my wreckless/unhealthy lifestyle from the past 3 years started to flood my mind (lots of condom-less sex with sketchy bitches, lots of alcohol and heavy hangovers, etc).
After a couple days the deep pain in my arms goes away but I still have the random needle pricks and tingles in my hands and feet (less in hands). Also random pains that last 3-4 seconds in other random areas of my body like shoulders, sides etc. Another symptom is the top of my fingers feel like they are sunburned when something touches them. I still have not drank anything more since that one beer about a week prior.
At this point I decide to go to a "good" clinic where I talked to a neurologist with my medium-level Spanish and told her my symptoms and my history of drinking. On the way to the doctor I actually felt some pretty sketchy pain in the side of my face that felt like nerve pain, which I also told her about. She did a bunch of blood tests on me that included glucose, vitamin b12, HIV, and some others.
The tests came back the next day and everything looked good but she said for my age my Vitamin b12 should be around 500+ and it was at 331.8. Vitamin B12 deficiency is what is commonly believed to cause the "alcoholic neuropathy" along with the alcoholic toxins themselves, so I thought OK so now what? She said this "could" be the reason and put me on one Vitamin b12 shot for 5 days and some folic acid pills (Biocobal) for 30 days. She also told me not to drink. I wasn't able to converse with her on the level I would with a doctor who spoke English but I asked her if it was permanent and she told me no it should go away "soon" after I started the treatment. She also had a light vibe and joking a lot of the time so I left the sessions with her feeling fairly optimistic about everything.
During the 5 days of shots I noticed a significant decrease in the symptoms to where I barely noticed it and I thought I was out of the woods and that the shit would go away completely very soon.
I'm now 3 weeks out from the last beer I had and about 2 weeks out from the start of the treatment, still taking the pills. However the symptoms have increased again in the past week since the shots ended and I am now getting random twitching in my toes and thumbs (much more in toes), along with random pricks, pains, and tingling in my arms and feet. I also notice more muscle twitches than normal like in my legs.
I'm able to function normally and go about my day without really thinking about it, but its still annoying that now it feels like its coming back instead of going away.
Anyone have any experience with this fucking shit or know anything about it? It's one of those things that alcohol causes that nobody talks about and you don't hear about it until it actually hits you. I'm nowhere near your typical fucked up looking alcoholic, actually quite the opposite. I'm a fairly young stylish dude who travels, games, and makes decent coin and has no other health issues or major life problems in general. I actually feel great besides this shit, especially after not drinking for 3 weeks.
Maybe it's early still and I need more time for my nerves to heal? Maybe I have some other weird sexually (or non-sexually) transmitted virus that is causing this? Maybe it's permanent and I'm stuck with this? Maybe something else?
Any thoughts, experiences, advice, or insight is welcome. Until then I would recommend anyone else experiencing early symptoms (twitching/tingling of the toes/feet/fingers etc) to evaluate their drinking before it gets worse like mine.
