Quote Originally Posted by wholapola
Thanks Birdgirl-hmm interesting..I should have given you more background on the patient to give you a better picture of what's going on...she's a 70 y/o very pleasant lady who was diagnosed with uterine cancer and was treated with a series of radiation and chemotherapy (Taxol/Carboplaitin) treatments. Prior to this, the patient had no signs or symptoms of neuropathy. The patient noticed that while undergoing the chemo treatments, her feet began showing signs of numbness and pain which traveled up to her calves as the treatments continued. We're trying to find out how and why this occurred and now that her treatments are concluded, how much feeling will return and to what degree.

The doc thinks it might be related to the radiation treatments and not the chemotherapy, but the patient insists this began with the chemotherapy. She has no history of diabetes. I'm trying to see how these tests correlate with her present condition.

Or is he checking for something else?
Remember, I'm still a student and certainly not a full-fledged doctor yet, but based on the further information you provided above, it sounds likely that the doctor was ordering those blood tests up in your previous post to simply rule out other causes of neuropathy, such as an automimmune disease, and confirm that her problems are a result of the chemo and/or radiation.

Neuropathy after chemo and radiation is very common as is, they now know, a sort of intellectual brain fog, too. That brain fog is increasingly reported in patients who have heavy-duty chemo. It makes sense to me that the radiation could have caused her neuropathy since it would have been aimed at her pelvis and could ostensibly have affected the nerves that issue from the the bottom of her spinal cord and stretch down into her legs and feet. I'm not sure it matters a whole lot whether her neuropathy happened as a result of the chemo or radiation. That is, knowing which one caused it isn't going to change the fact that she has it now. With luck, those nerves will get better and heal up and she'll feel better. Nerve healing takes a lot of time. That'll be slow going, especially for someone who's 70. Hope she has a good recovery!