Can neuropathy affect your whole body?

[Deanne]

I'm thankfully finally seeing the end of this blasted cold in my near future. Just a slight occasional cough left. I'm trying this week to get everything back to normal and then will likely have labs run next week. I know they're still off. I haven't had an appetite for nearly three weeks and lost about 5 pounds. I took extra phosphorus and magnesium in the meantime because I'm still fighting to keep those values in the normal range and without eating well, I know they would have tanked otherwise. I still feel tired and run-down, but I expect it to take a while to get back to myself. In the meantime, I have a new weird thing going on. Is it likely because my labs are still off?

A couple of days ago, I changed my shirt in the middle of the day and it felt like I'd just taken the fresh shirt out of the refrigerator. I thought it was weird and I even smelled it before I put it on to see if my cat had peed on it because it had that wet-cold sort of feel to it when I picked it up. It was dry. I didn't think any more of it since it warmed up as soon as I put it on. Yesterday, everything was more pronounced. Everything I touch feels cold. Air touching the back of my hands feels frigid. I don't get a burning sensation when I touch warm water like I've had before with peripheral neuropathy, but I can't tell if my hands, arms, feet, legs are warm or cold. When I don't have socks and shoes on, it feels like I'm walking on ice cubes (I don't have carpet). When I put my hands on my bare arms while laying in bed last night, the place on my arms that I touched felt almost burning hot. My hands feel cold right now. I'm wearing light-weight gloves, like I always do at work, but my hands feel like they're cold. When I touch them to my face, my fingertips are cold, but the rest of my hands are warm, but not hot. My hot and cold sensations are all out of whack in general. I can't tell if my torso is affected that much since it's always covered, but I think it might be affected a bit. That toilet seat was sure cold!

My hips also hurt a lot when I got into bed last night, enough so that it was hard to get to sleep, and I woke up during the night with a hurting lower back, too. I didn't do anything to injure or strain them. My back still hurts today if I bend over. Coincidental to the off-kilter temperature sensations?

Any guesses?

[Charlie B53]

What is the temp and humidity outside?

Same question inside your home.

What are you using to heat your home?

Relative humidity outside drops like a rock ini freezing weather.  As that air leaks into the home and is heated it's capacity to hold humidity raises, but without a source of moisture the relative humidity level inside will be even lower than outside.

I keep our house at 72, but even at that, the humidity is so low there is a certain amount of evaporation off of exposed skin.  Making it 'feel' even colder than it actually is.

Fireplaces evaporate moisture from the wood, but the problem there is it is lost up the chimney, taking warmed air with it and causing even more cold dry air to leak into the home.

Have you ever know someone that kept a teapot, or pan of water on the stove?  They were raising the humidity inside to make the air feel more 'comfortable'.   Not saying this is your problem, but it is an easy test.  Try keeping a pot of water hot on the stove and see if you can 'feel' an improvement.

[Deanne]

Thanks Charlie. This all continued in a different thread: "More new stuff. Have to call my neph"

It isn't "normal" cold sensations. Even the inside of my mouth became affected. My neph is almost positive it's from hypercalcemia / hyperparathyroid. She's testing for bone cancer / bone disease and I see a surgeon tomorrow about removing my parathyroids.

[Charlie B53]

My calcium has run high for 30 years.  They haven't found a cause, yet.  Late last year it started climbing higher.  From my usual 10.4 to 11.7, and stayed there almost 6 months til it finally fell to barely under 11.  We still don't know why.

I feel half cold all the time.  Get chilled immediately if I go outside and the wind hits me.  Sometimes takes hours wrapped in three heavy blankets, with my dog, before I feel comfortable again.  Needless to say, I don't run around in our house naked anymore.  Life was a lot more fun then.

[Deanne]

Is your PTH ok? (although I'm sure it's been checked over and over again.)

I've been cold a lot for as long as I can remember, regardless of my PTH or calcium levels. Running around the house naked is only an option when the temperature goes above 80. 70 degrees = slippers and a sweatshirt. I always thought it was because my normal body temperature is 97.7 (no anemia).

I'm not sure what my calcium was before transplant, but since transplant it has been in the mid 10s for the most part, with an excursion or two over 11. This whole bruh-ha-ha kicked in when it suddenly went from the mid-10s to 12.8. It was instant misery between pain (possibly bone pain) and neurological symptoms. Tomorrow I hope to get a surgery date to remove my parathyroids.