Weird foot thing: any theories?

Detailed description of symptoms follows. If you’re not interested and have no expertise or theory to offer, please feel free to skip this question. I’m looking for some ideas before I seek further medical counsel.

A year and a half ago, one toe started to feel weird. It felt as if it were wrapped in cotton.

It began when I was at the airport, commencing all-day travel to the East Coast. I was wearing lace-up sandals that did not put any particular pressure on my foot, but I couldn’t easily slip them off and had nothing else to wear.

After arrival, in different shoes, in slippers, and barefoot, the sensation did not go away. It was disconcerting and threw me off my balance a little as I kept unconsciously trying to wriggle the toe and restore full sensation. Movement did not have any noticeable effect.

A month later, I went to my doctor. By then it seemed to alternate between being slightly numb (as though coated) and slightly painful (a little bit carpal-tunnelish, but not bad). The doctor went through quite a series of checks, actually going down a reference list, looking especially for anything diabetes-related (which he said it wasn’t), and ended with “It’s probably a nerve.” He said there wasn’t much else he could tell from an external examination.

After about a year of remaining the same, it started to hurt more, as if it were sparking like a bad electrical connection. Not all the time, just now and then. Most of the time it still felt wrapped in cotton, and some of the time it felt wrapped in barbed wire.

Within the past week, it is now giving sharp pain when I walk, as though I had stepped (just with the one toe) on broken glass or a bed of tacks. Again, it is not constant, just intermittent, and the general cotton-coated sensation persists. But these sharp pains are now halting my gait and causing me to limp whenever they occur.

Meanwhile, my doctor has sold his practice and I am just getting used to a new guy. Seeing someone would be a cold start. Any ideas before I pursue this? It is now really getting in my way.

Thank you.