Meralgia Parasthetica... durnit.

[Old Ironsights]

For a few years now I've been wondering why my right leg goes numb... now I know.

Occupational hazard of a skinny guy wearing a gun belt.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1141848-overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meralgia_paresthetica
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/meralgi ... /intro.htm

[rjohns94]

looks like its treatable. sorry for this "thorn in your side". prayers and blessings for a quick recovery. good you know what your dealing with.

[claybob86]

I have something similar going on with my left leg, but the pain goes all the way to the foot. Seems to be due to a certain pressure point on my hip. Moving my belt up seems to alleviate it. Might mention it to the doctor one of these days... Good luck with your trouble, OI!

[Bruce]

Well, I never knew it had a name, but I did know it existed. For my entire LE career, we always joked that it was easy to tell a reired LE officer from others because of his/her limp. Mine got real bad towards the end of my career and it is not much better even after almost three years of retirement. I think mine has a lot to do with the location of my magazine pouch, which was located on my front left side. It would put pressure on my upper leg when I set down or drove, causing me to lean right favoring my right leg. I have also heard that a wallet carried in the back pocket would do the same thing. I am guilty of that also.

Even after three years, that gun belt is still there - as far as my mind goes. I will instinctively lean and rest my right arm on the pistol and turn to protect it when talking to someone.

[Old Ironsights]

looks like its treatable. sorry for this "thorn in your side". prayers and blessings for a quick recovery. good you know what your dealing with.

Unfortunately "treatable" means not wearing a belt... and Shoulder rigs aren't in the Uniform Inventory...

[olyinaz]

Sorry to hear!

I've got similar issues but so far have managed to avoid contracting one that will interfere with my job but it worries me so I feel for you.

Best wishes,
Oly

[AJMD429]

Just be sure to realize that not everything that makes one's leg tingle is meralgia paresthetica...

(...after all, Obama makes the Liberal journalist's leg tingle... )

Think of stroke (if it is new, sudden - could be 'ER' time), spinal stenosis or other 'disk' problems, diabetic (or 'prediabetic') neuropathy, or many other issues.

Doctors can usually tell, so if any of you are having similar symptoms, don't just assume what it is, but get checked...!

Someday I may post a 'generic health recommendation' thing for levergunners, if I get the time to work up something halfway intelligent sounding...

[Tycer]

Maybe learn to shoot and carry weak side?

[Old Ironsights]

Just be sure to realize that not everything that makes one's leg tingle is meralgia paresthetica...

(...after all, Obama makes the Liberal journalist's leg tingle... )

Think of stroke (if it is new, sudden - could be 'ER' time), spinal stenosis or other 'disk' problems, diabetic (or 'prediabetic') neuropathy, or many other issues.

Doctors can usually tell, so if any of you are having similar symptoms, don't just assume what it is, but get checked...!

Someday I may post a 'generic health recommendation' thing for levergunners, if I get the time to work up something halfway intelligent sounding...

My local Doc (aso a gunny) & I came to this preliminary diagnosis. Haven't had the EMG or other tests yet, but I don't have the proper symptoms for anything diabetic or siatic based things like piriformis syndrome. Ditto for TIAs or any other CVA type issues (this has been a long term puzzle).

Biggest indicator is that the parasthesia is transient - i.e. goes away (or at least used to) when I'm lounging around without a belt.

[El Chivo]

Funny, I've been having something like that in my right leg, but I didn't know it was a syndrome. I figured it was due to my sedentary job, if I lean to one side too much in my chair, or, at home, if I lay on that side too long.

I can feel it now, though it's not painful, it's a little numbness. I figured that it was a symptom of getting older - aches and pains and infirmities.

Sounds like losing weight will help it.

[AJMD429]

One other tidbit - we're finding that low vitamin D levels (25-OH vit D < 40) sometimes exascerbate paresthesias and dysesthesias (i.e. 'numby-tingly' stuff) from other causes. When we give enough to get the level up (8,000 units a day, or up to three times that to jump start the person if it is way low), some of the symptoms go away...! It also appears to work on the muscle pains from statins, enabling many folks to tolerate those sometimes life-saving drugs, and seems many times to enable many folks to reduce their blood pressure medications or eliminate them entirely.

You should NOT just go buy a bunch of vitamin D though, because unless your level IS low, you could get a toxic/high level from taking 'therapeutic' doses like that. Likewise, the whole 'project' should be supervised by, or done with the cooperation of, your physician.

Chemically, vitamin D is actually a 'steroid' so acts more as a hormone one has to get from external sources (and have activated by sun exposure, although recent research calls the adequacy of 'sun exposure' into question). Other steroids naturally in the body include testosterone, cortisol, aldosterone, estrogen, progesterone, cholesterol, and sitosterols - their structural similarities are so close that few practicing physicians could identify them from one another if drawn on a blackboard! That might explain the somewhat 'ambitious' claims we're hearing about vitamin D improving psoriasis (anti-inflammatory properties like cortisol), bones (like testosterone), reducing hot flushes (like estrogen), blood pressure (like aldosterone), and lipids (like cholesterol). Even response to insulin (natural or injected) could be improved via some of these mechanisms. So - keep an eye on vitamin D.

Admittedly, there will be a 'pendulum' effect no doubt - you can't find 90% of the population deficient in something (...only 20 of the first 500 levels we checked were normal, and over 50% of women tested on a SanDiego beach were low...), prescribe it to all those people, and NOT get lots of side effects (asking 200 million people to drive to the pharmacy once a month and buy a pack of sugar-free gum will get some of them killed in car wrecks, slipping on parking lot ice, or choking on the chewing gum...).