Suggest Treatment For Numbness In Legs, Left Arm And Ringing In Ears

Brief Answer:
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Detailed Answer:
Good evening Ms. XXXXXXX

My name is Dr. Saghafi and I would like to answer your question based upon the information you've provided. I'm a neurologist in the XXXXXXX OH region of the world.

Your complaints are numbness in the legs which started some 2 weeks ago and seem to be getting worse. In addition, you've developed ringing in the ears (tinnitus). Your ENT has recommended that you remove your diet caffeine and alcohol consumption as well as find ways to reduce your stress levels. Despite following these recommendations your condition has not improved.

If in fact, the evolution of these problems is definitely no more than 2 weeks then, I might say that the time frame may not be long enough yet for you to see changes based upon the recommendations you've been given. Having said that, I'm not sure I quite understand how the recommendation of diet caffeine removal and reducing stress levels was expected to reduce the numb feelings in the legs (from an organic point of view that is). I certainly do not DISAGREE with the recommendations for their own merit and value of course.

Drinking soda pop (diet or not), alcohol ingestion in excess of social drinking, and high stress levels can never be better for a person than the reverse, wouldn't you agree? However, if the goal is to discover why you are having your symptoms and to fix that then, again, I'm not sure the caffeinated diet pop makes sense. Reducing alcohol consumption in a person complaining of numbness in the legs DOES MAKE SENSE because of an entity called neuropathy which tends to affect parts of the legs (especially the feet first).

Therefore, my recommendations to you would be the following:

1. We need to get a more detailed history on when and how the numbness began. Not to say that your 2 week time frame is not precise but in my experience with my patients I find that when they believe a process such as numbness began "2 weeks ago" I almost always find out that it likely started occurring much longer ago than that...however, 2 weeks ago just happens to be the time frame in which they've noticed it either getting decidedly worse, or when they really decided that now, it was constant and wasn't going away. So, please think of the question indepth and think about HOW LONG ago could the numbness in the legs have started and is it possible that it could've really started as more insignificant feelings of tingling sensations in the feet or toes much longer ago? If not, that's fine but I'm just mentioning what my experience is in my patients and the fact, that it is important we get as accurate a timeline as possible on these issues to have a chance at discovering the cause.

2. How about the tinnitus? When exactly did that start in relation to the numbness in the legs? Before, after, definitely at the same time? Do you take aspirin for a lot of different things? Did you take aspirin in the past for different things or perhaps just one thing but high dose?

3. Can you quantify how much alcohol you were accustomed to drinking prior to all these symptoms coming on and for how long have you used alcohol at an increased level at what you're drinking now?

4. Do you have any other chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, etc.? Do you have trouble with your thyroid gland that you know of and have you been tested recently? How about labs recently as such B12, Vit. D, folate, etc. Have you had full lab testing?

5. Are you on any medications over the past 4-6 weeks for any reason which are new to you or otherwise, not usual for you to be taking?

Once you've had a chance to answer these questions please send them back to me along with uploading any lab results you can get your hands on such as blood work, urine, etc. You can upload to the system and then, I will be able to go through and look at the results before I answer your next round of questions or comment on what you may wish to add to your story.

If you believe I've provided you with information of value and would like to close the query at this point then, would you please leave a little written feedback and then, a STAR RATING. The more stars you give me the more peanuts the network will give me in my bag to stay up the night and answer more questions! LOL!

I am also on live webcam medical consults tonight at 11p-3a at:

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which is a different network than this one but you are welcome to go on that service and look me up as well. Or you may stick with texting me your questions here and see what we can come up with.

Once again, thank you for the opportunity at helping with your problem and I look forward to your return responses.

This query required 28 minutes of physician specific review, research, and final draft compilation for envoy.

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