Q. Why is there numbness and swelling in feet and legs?

Hello doctor,

I am contacting you on behalf of my grandmother who is suffering from a number of issues and advice from her regular doctors is not coming up with a decent solution. I have asked her to write down from her point of view about the problems and here it is. Ailments are diabetic, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). Epileptic till the age of 50, She is 80 years.

Description of complaints. Buzzing, stinging, numb, swollen feet, and legs. Walking on any type of flooring is painful even carpeted flooring and feels like either the floor is cold, wet, oily or even feels like cold satin cloth. She cannot wear slippers or socks of any description on feet as they give a weird sensation, although she has one pair of shoes that she can tolerate for a few hours. Clothes feel cold and sometimes oily when getting dressed. Body temperatures seem to have gone awry. At times feels as if she is in a sauna and then suddenly she goes very cold. She feels the draughts tremendously indoors, the small amount of air movement by myself or other people seems exaggerated as if the air is being moved around her. This does not feel quite the same with wind or breezes when she is out on a windy day. She always has to have an electric blanket on at night (although on a low setting). She has to have toilet seat covers on because the seat feels icy cold even when it is not cold in the room. Gets electric type shocks darting all over on my body about six times or so every day. She has runny eyes, and hypersensitive smell to perfumes, deodorant, toothpaste, soap powder, coffee, newspapers, shiny junk mail, cooking smells. cling film. leather seats in car. Everything listed has a very very powerful smell and she has to avoid contact with any of these. All this has a depressive feeling. Her last blood test showed slightly low on magnesium, so now eating spinach and almonds every day.