sfem, the numbness and pain in your feet could also be a symptom of diabetic neuralgia, nerve damage caused diabetes. I'm not saying you have diabetes, that is something you would have to be tested for. The numbness and pain can have many other causes.

I'm a Type 2 diabetic myself and suffer from this numbness and pain. The diabetes predates my NBE and PM use. In the last year, for some reason, I have regained some feeling in the upper parts of my shins/calves and the pain in my feet has lessened. and they are not as numb. Previously, I could not feel insects crawling on my legs below the knees. Now I can feel them from mid-shin/calf upwards. Nerves are NOT supposed to regenerate! Also, related to the numbness in the feet, the outer three fingers of each hand, experience numbness to a lesser or greater degree.

BigDave

To add to what Big Dave says, it is possible to suffer from diabetic type peripheral neuropathy despite one's fasting blood sugar levels and A1C being well below the thresholds normally associated with type 2 diabetes. It seems that all that may be required in some cases is reduced glucose tolerance (which can also be tested for) which can allow damaging blood sugar levels in the short term even though fasting and average levels are normal. My own problems of this type also predate my use of PM, and don't seem to have been noticeably influenced by it. Nor can I say whether PM has worsened my backaches. Any recent worsening is more probably due to my ventral hernia. With many other factors at play, it is very difficult to know what causes what.

My father died from diabetes effects, general organ failure and had advanced neuropathy damage by the time he died (the exact cause at the time of death was heart failure while on hemodialysis because he was end-stage renal fail). I'm familiar with the symptoms, and mine appears different. I don't have a deadening numbness, it is a very painful type of numbing sensation. Kind of like the pain you get when your circulation has been cut off for too long and the circulation is coming back. I have been diagnosed with metatarsalgia (sp?), with no apparent cause. I use orthotics and ice, but both are only temporary solutions. Staying off PM improves things, but I don't like that answer.

I speculate that in many cases PM does not itself cause these various effects, but its mental effects may include alteration of the brain's perception of certain sensory effects. This could explain Sfem's possibly greater perception of pain and numbness characteristic of metatarsalgia, Big Dave's improved sensory perception in his feet, greater awareness of possibly pre-existing low level back aches, and possibly a greater degree of paraesthesia generally - not in all cases a bad thing, but perhaps a price to be paid for other benefits of PM?

I'm actually guessing that the vasodilator effect of PM is what is exacerbating my foot troubles.