Curious if anyone has a script they use for patients who present with benign tingling sensations. The prototypic patient being 20-30s presenting with variable tingling of the face, arms and legs. Exam, labs, MRI and EMG normal.
I’ll often review benign reasons for tingling and provide a lot of reassurance, but often these patient’s remain dismayed and frustrated.
I’m wondering if anyone has advice in how to go about forming legislation related to our field.
I regularly see poorly performed EMG studies done by local physical therapists. If its simple entrapment, thats fine, but I have had many instances where a PT fails to recognize they’re out of their knowledge depth in terms of EMG findings and tries to attribute complex findings to multiple entrapments. My most recent example was a guy with mononeuritis multiplex that received bilateral CTS release and ulnar tunnel release based on the recommendation of a PT. Before that was an ALS patient who was diagnosed with length dependent polyneuropathy.
Some would argue they are as qualified as a general neurologist, and i would vehemently disagree. Specially, in these instances in which a more nefarious disease is happening, a general neurologist is going to have the background necessary to acknowledge that.
These cases are frustrating for me and awful for the patient. What can we do to make them stop?
edit: sorry i realize this is regionally dependent. This is in the USA, but is relevant to multiple states.