Question: Please find below the letter received from hospital. Is there really nothing we can do I would like your opinion please as I feel my Dad has been written off;

Diagnosis: likely diabetic motor sensory neuropathy
Thank you for referring this 68 year old right handed gentleman to the Neurology clinic. He has had diabetes since 2000. His control was previosuly poor though has improved in the last 9 months. Mr Bridge has a previous history of osteomyelitis for which he was treated long term antibiotics. He now describes a 3 month history of progressive weakness of both legs. Although he can stand he feels unsteady and his legs quite often give way. He also described numbness in the legs. His arms bowel bladder speech and swallowing is unaffected.

On examination today his cranial nerves were unremarkable. Examination of limbs revealed normal tone. Power was normal in both arms and legs. Hip flexion was reduced to 3/5 bilaterally. Reflexes were absent in the legs but present in the arms. Sensation to pinprick was reduced distally in the legs but was present in the arms. Vibration sense was absent up to the hips. There were no fasiculations visible.

I suspect this gentleman has quite a severe axonal motor sensory neuropathy secondary to his diabetes. I have explained that this is not a treatable condition but we need to do some further investigations to exclude any more treatable causes. I am areanging MRI scan of lumbar spine to make sure there is no cord pathology or nerve root compression and some nerve conduction studies to quantify the extent of his nerve damage. I will write with the results once they are available.

Please help me there must be something I can do to help my dad I am really upset

so Dad could just gain some improvement in time? How can we help this please if it is diabetes neuropathy. Dad is on a strict diabetic diet - where can I learn the diet to make sure we are doing things right and also can dad have a whisky or a beer within the alcohol guidelines? I mean like 1 or 2 pub measures every couple of days

Until we get appointments through acupuncture will do no harm in us trying will it?

Is there any hope we can get dad walking to even using just a zimmer without falling I do realise he will never walk independently again, though this would be great and if so how can we achieve this please?

Can dad drink alcohol within the government guidelines?

Thank you so much for your help and I will be in touch when dad has all results