Thank you for your thoughts. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately I don't have much more than the one test, where fasting came in at 81 and at 63 2 hours after the sugar drink. I think I may have some other fasting stats from earlier and possible before I even starting taking the Benfo. about 4 months ago.
I didn't take it the morning of, since I take it with breakfast and dinner, 300 mg. each time, so 600 in total.
I did some monitoring at home over two days and it didn't fluctuate very much and certainly didn't drop that low again, staying in the 70s or 80s, but perhaps that's because I'm on a zero sugar, very low carb diet, a paleo diet that doesn't even include starchy veggies. I did alter my diet on the second day with some sweets and carbs, a decent amount but again not that kind of fluctuation at all and not that low.
Basically I'm trying to see two things. First, what supplements will improve my health, and not so much for pain but for healing: I want to heal my nerve fibers. Second, I want to know whether Benfo. is doing good or harm. I really don't know. I've improved for the most part from the summertime, but I've done so much more than just take this supplement and my dietary changes have been by far the most important and helpful.
The concern is that because I don't have diabetes, the Benfo. is lowering my glucose too much or have a detrimental affect on how I'm metabolizing sugar, etc. I am considering going off it for a few weeks or at least a week or two and monitoring my glucose levels. I suppose I can do this. Or I can have the doctors do it for me. The thing is, I don't want to break my diet, since each time I do it's hell on my symptoms and it can last for weeks. So given this restriction, my thought is that I can only go off it, everything else being equal, and then see how my body is reacting. I could also take my glucose levels on it and off it, I guess. I'm really not sure, and was hoping for some literature on it, even online.
When I received the results I wondered whether it's because of my diet, which also goes back 4 months, and whether my body just didn't know how to deal with the load of sugar after 4 months of a ketonic diet. I suppose I just don't know enough here. I did stay off the Alpha Lipoic Acid precisely due to concerns over hypoglycemia, even though I've heard it can help with PN.
By the way, what's an A1C? I imagine it's glucose levels or averages of it over time?
Thanks again!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Winter
Benfotiamine is extremely beneficial in glucose metabolism. There definitely may be a link if you take it regularly. It does help with SFN pain for sure. Did you take Benfotiamine the morning of the OGTT?
My personal experience is that Benfotiamine is very good at reducing blood sugar levels. My personal fasting levels reduced by about 10 points on a dose of 500 mg a day. For me its been a win/win, I have never been below 70 even at my lowest reading. Usually i average in the low 80s.
Do you have any idea of your levels before you started taking the benfotiamine? A1C, fasting or OGTT? Personally i wouldn't stress over anything unless I had a really low A1C level. Because that shows what your blood sugar level is as an average over 3 months. If you have been taking Benfotiamine for that time it would be a really good gauge. If you had a normal fasting it seems like this is really not a cause for concern. My doctors have done all 3 blood sugar tests several times. What the told me was that they need to see a trend across all the tests to make any serious diagnosis.
You could always do blood glucose monitoring at home as well. Can get a kit pretty cheaply on Amazon. Its a good way to see what may be a trigger on your own without dealing with doctors visits and lab workups.
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