I am having a strange symptom with my legs, which I’ve been trying to ‘ignore’ for some time, but which I can no longer deny.
Several months ago I was diagnosed with Necrobiosis Lipoidica Diabeticorum - an unsightly rash common in young women who are diabetic. Mine hasn’t ulcerated yet, and isn’t so bad - some days it just looks like raised areas, sometimes like bruised raised areas (but it’s not even close to as bad as some of the images online). My endo gave me a steroid cream to put on it, in the hopes that would help and I wouldn’t need steroid injections. I will follow up on this in December.
Because of the NLD I sometimes I have itching on my lower legs/the affected areas. What seems unrelated is the burning/tingling sensation I experience when I scratch my lower legs and feet.
My question: Could painful tingling/burning sensations felt when I scratch an itch be a symptom of neuropathy? For what it’s worth I have no other symptoms that would lead me to believe it’s neuropathy. This pain ONLY happens when I scratch. I have no weakness, etc.
I have NLD, too! Mine is just a red spot (round) on my right shin. It’s pretty noticeable and I wear a lot of skirts so I get many “what happened to your leg!” comments, but I’ve mostly gotten over being self-conscious about it. I hear you about some of the horrible images online! I don’t think it was ever raised as I usually read it described. It started off flat and is now a sort of depression in my leg and has increased slightly in size during its lifetime. It appeared maybe 5 years ago and I thought it was a weird bruise for a while until a doctor spotted it and told me what it was (though some doctors and CDEs since haven’t had any idea what it was).
Creams didn’t do anything for me (though I didn’t use them for a terribly long time), and I never followed through with it any further as my family doctor said it would never go away, the dermatologist I saw said there was only a slight chance that steroids would clear it up, and my edocrinologist says sometimes they go away on their own. I’d be interested to hear if you have success with the treatments.
I sometimes get itchy around the affected area too but I thought it might be psychosomatic as I tend to notice it more when I have been running high. I’ve read and been told that the NLD has nothing to do with glucose control and “just happens” to some people, but it did show up after several years of me having very poor control.
I don’t have an answer to your question; I was just interested to see a post about it. I believe what NLD does, though, is deteriorate the lipids under your skin. So could it perhaps just be that the deterioration of lipids causes a different sensation when you scratch? I banged mine gently once on a piece of gym equipment (in any other place it probably would not have hurt at all) and it was the worst pain I had felt in a while!
I wouldn’t be too worried. Neuropathy could be playing some part of it it, but it sounds like it’s not the primary issue. Over the summer I started to freak out when my feet would tingle after about 4-5 miles into my runs but that went away when the humidity went away and my socks didn’t stick to my feet so much. I can’t say for certain that there is zero nerve damage, but I believe the agitation from sweaty socks was the primary culprit!
Wow, Necrobiosis Lipoidica Diabeticorum sounds like a mark I had on my leg that they’d just always tell me was a rash. When I got my sugar back under control they totally went away.
I don’t know about all those things but most of the time it feels like I’m walking on cactus