Because nerves are the highways of our physical sensations, we can feel different types of pain, pleasure, tickling, being wet, hot, cold, sensations that aren't there, and several other sensations.
With Cauda Equina Syndrome, I think it falls more into just a few main types, with a lot of sub-types:
- Normal feeling
- Numb / no feeling - touch me, pinch me, or stick me with a pin - I won't know it
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Tingly (Pins and needles) - Like your hand or foot went to sleep and is starting to wake up
- Subtype - Not Painful - this just produces a strange feeling like a low level electric shock, not painful just strange
- Subtype - Painful - this feels like anything from being stung by wasps to sticking your finger in an electrical outlet to putting your body part in a tight vise
- Sub-subtypes:
- Sub-subtype - Surface - this feeling only occurs at the surface, normal feeling occurs at muscle level
- Sub-subtype - Deep - this goes right on through to your muscles
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Nerve - This pain can take several forms:
- Subtype - Elektrošoks - usually severe, sometimes less so - feels like what you would imagine 10,000 volts going through you would feel like
- Subtype - Burning - yep, feels like the nerve is on fire
- Subtype - Creepy Crawly - feels like "things" are crawling on you
- Subtype - Stretched Out - feels like your nerve has been stretched and can't go any further (e.g. nerve running from hip to big toe - as you take a step with your other foot and your ankle bends, you get the distinct feeling that your toe will not bend any further to allow a bigger step - this is usually painful, sometimes not
- Subtype - Phantom - any of the above that really isn't a physical cause for, but your irritated nerve thinks it is happening so you feel it anyway 🙁
With CES you can mix and match those all across your lower body and extremities. For example, I have a 2 inch wide strip across the front of my right thigh, just above my knee, which has normal feeling. The whole front of my left thigh has normal feeling...
I have very little area which has normal feeling, most is Tingly, Non Painful. My left foot is definitely Tingly Painful and the right foot is TINGLY PAINFUL!!!! Just ask my wife, she'll tell you. The worst thing about the right foot, though, is walking on it. No matter how expensive the cushion insert is it still feels as though I'm walking on rebar. You know, those iron poles with big raised spots on them that construction workers put into concrete to help it be much stronger? Yeah, those rebars. Next time you're at a home improvement or hardware store take a look at one. Then imagine having that in the heel of your shoe all day and night. Welcome to a tiny part of CES.
I've not seen any sensory improvement since sometime around mid-April of this year. By that I mean that the areas of my lower body which had no feeling, or abnormal feeling, are still the same. I noticed last week that a small strip down the middle of my right calf has gone from surface tingly NP to no feeling. At the same time I discovered that my right big toe now refuses to be lifted. This is definitely regression.
I don't know what is going on, but I know Who is in control of it. Without seeing God's hand in all of this, it would become easy to grow bitter and changing into a grump old man. But I'm not ready to make life miserable for everyone around me... at least not yet 😉
