Insensitive yet painful feet - the neurologist says it's caused by beer?

May 10, 2008 11:57 AM

Insensitive feet and ankles, yet painful feet, caused by drinking beer according to the neurologist. What is the name of the condition? Read on for more info.

My 70 year old father suffers from painful feet, yet they're also insensitive -- he can prick them with a pin and not feel it. This extends up his ankles. He's been to see a neurologist who says that it's caused by the beer my dad drinks every night (Newcastle Brown beer). Sadly, the neurologist didn't give a name to this strange condition. What is it? We don't think it's gout because there are not gout-like symptoms, such as rashes.

posted by deeper red to health (19 comments total)

I should have mentioned that the pain is in the balls of the feet.
posted by deeper red at 11:58 AM on May 10

Gluten allergy ?
posted by iamabot at 12:10 PM on May 10

Peripheral neuropathy.
posted by pieoverdone at 12:37 PM on May 10

I was going to say gout.

Maybe peripheral neuropathy. pie, beat me to it.
posted by LoriFLA at 12:40 PM on May 10

Peripheral neuropathy sounds about right. The neurologist is insisting on tests to determine his blood vitamin levels, as if he believes it's either that or the alcohol.
posted by deeper red at 1:11 PM on May 10

Alcohol causes malabsorption of many vitamins.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:23 PM on May 10

Type 2 diabetes imay cause peripheral neuropathy. I did a quick PubMed search but I was not able to find any article linking beer and neuropathy.
posted by francesca too at 1:55 PM on May 10

francesca, see my link. Alcoholism is a known cause. The nightly beer? Maybe not.
posted by LoriFLA at 2:08 PM on May 10

I'm fairly sure it's peripheral neuropathy. Presumably his initial blood tests would have shown-up diabetes. He has many other symptoms that tick the boxes of peripheral neuropathy, and indeed the doctor has ordered tests that the Wikipedia article mentions as proving it either way.
posted by deeper red at 2:21 PM on May 10

I'm a Type 2 diabetes sufferer with peripheral neuropathy of feet and ankles up to above the ankle. The good news it's not spreading up the leg, the bad news is that it is unlikely it will ever reverse itself (in my case). Some days my feet like blocks of wood at the end of my legs with no feeling at all, other days it's not so bad.

If you have it, take care of your feet and inspect them regularly. If you get a cut or foot infection you may not know it, and I can basically can never go barefoot as it is possible to step on something and not even realize I've done it.
posted by 543DoublePlay at 2:26 PM on May 10

Your dad would know if he had gout. Gout feels like broken glass in your joints and your joints will be red, swollen, and "shiny", particularly when you have it in your feet.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 2:32 PM on May 10

For the peripheral neuropathy to be attributable to alcohol, the intake would have to be heroic. There are many possible causes.

If your dad hasn't been diabetic for at least 10 years, and his kidney function is normal, and his vitamin B12 level is okay, then it's unlikely that a cause will be found. One could expend a great deal of effort and money in looking, though.
posted by neuron at 2:35 PM on May 10

For the peripheral neuropathy to be attributable to alcohol, the intake would have to be heroic.

I think that I'd label that statement as Class U: controversial and unsupported by class I or II evidence.
posted by ikkyu2 at 4:57 PM on May 10

If your dad hasn't been diabetic for at least 10 years, and his kidney function is normal, and his vitamin B12 level is okay, then it's unlikely that a cause will be found. One could expend a great deal of effort and money in looking, though.

This is raving nonsense. There are a great many treatable causes of neuropathy and a great many others that are untreatable. It is beneficial to diagnose even untreatable ones because then prognosis can be established, clues to systemic disesases can be found, and the side effects of inefficacious treatments can be avoided (like amyloidosis, for example, whose cardiac manifestations *can* be treated).

It is also important to diagnose treatable neuropathies for the obvious reason - to treat them correctly.

Trashcanning a suffering person the way you just did, neuron, out of your own ignorance, is really reprehensible conduct. Take more care in the future.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:00 PM on May 10 [2 favorites]

Trashcanning a suffering person the way you just did, neuron, out of your own ignorance, is really reprehensible conduct. Take more care in the future.

It's OK - I know better than to believe everything I read on Metafilter :) pieoverdone hit the nail on the head, and that's all I needed. Thanks everybody.
posted by deeper red at 12:25 AM on May 11

Peripheral neuropathy related to alcohol intake does generally require alcoholic-level drinking: it's not a problem typically associated with moderate drinkers, I'll put it that way.

But alcoholic brain damage results from malabsorption of niacin: this should be supplemented especially if the person refuses to stop drinking.
posted by Maias at 6:39 AM on May 11

Did you talk to the doctor yourself? Or is dad translating what he said? Because the doctor might have given him a more exact reasoning, and your dad (as happens with many, many patient-doctor interactions) only understood parts of it and only "heard" that it's caused by his beer.

This is a maddening effect of the stress of being a patient- I've sat in rooms with doctors where they explain something, and moments later, the patient recalls the explanation completely differently. It's not their fault at all, it's just a bad combination of the stress of being a patient and the doctor possibly not being the best explainer in the world.
posted by gjc at 8:27 AM on May 11

I want to close this subject now because I'm very sure it's peripheral neuropathy, although the cause has yet to be determined with 100% certainty and he's undergoing electrical testing to ensure it's not anything else.

To answer the questions:

1) Yes, he was a heavy drinker. Beer every night. He and I think this is most likely explanation. He has now gone Tee-total.

2) My mother went into the consultation room with him, and both of them told me what they heard. Neither were told what the doctor thought the illness is but, by all accounts, he considered it fairly routine and nothing to be terribly worried about.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's probably a duck.
posted by deeper red at 9:11 AM on May 11

But alcoholic brain damage results from malabsorption of niacin: this should be supplemented especially if the person refuses to stop drinking.

Supplementation doesn't correct malabsorption, and you're thinking of thiamine, not niacin.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:12 AM on May 11