SSEP Test - UCSF
After having been electrocuted in the standard fashion about a week earlier, Dr. Poncelet had me undergo the full "top to bottom" electrocution - more formally called the Somatasensory Evoked Potentials (SSEP) Test. In this test, they wire you up carefully, from your arms and feet though to your spine to your head. The idea is that they will shock you and record how quickly the signal gets to the spinal cord and thence to the brain. The goal is to determine if (a) a problem can be found and (b) if there is a problem can it be isolated to the periphery or is it in the central nervous system.
Two hours of wiring and shocking follow. It is a lower level shock than last week's electrocutions, but in general, it lasts much longer. Rather than one or two jolts, it is repeated shocks for 2-3 minutes. Oh, if anyone wants to be motivated to lose weight - it turns out that I am very fortunate to be rather lean. If you are heavy, they have to use bigger shocks - and there is no way that is fun.
The results to this test finally gave us an important clue. The signals coming from the legs do not make it to the brain in the right amount of time. Thus, the problem is not a peripheral neuropathy, but it is something in the central nervous system. Technically, that is bad news, but I prefer clarity to unknowns.
Next step will be an MRI to start the search for what is wrong in the central nervous system. Multiple sclerosis is one of the more common causes of what I am having, but not much else about that diagnosis fits the symptoms.