[Leg pain in neurology]

A frequent presenting symptom encountered by both neurologists and phlebologists, pain in the lower limbs often results in clinical practice in the suggestion of a neurological disorder. Only pain relating to neurological conditions will be dealt with here. A review of the anatomical pathways of different types of sensation is followed by a semiological review of descriptions of pain and the underlying mechanisms. Mention is then made "from below upwards" of a number of common conditions in which pain is a frequent presenting symptom: firts peripheral: polyneuropathy (alcoholic and diabetic), polyradiculoneuropathy, mononeuropathy, root pain (sciatica, cruralgia), narrow lumbar canal; then central: spinal cord pain, thalamic pain, so-called projected encephalic pain. This merely provides a differential diagnostic approach in relation to phlebological pain of the lower limbs.