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Originally Posted by steeler
Hello to everyone on this site, I am a new member and this is my first post. Soulful Yin I have recently read your original post and have experienced a few things that may or may not help in some small way.
I wad diagnosed initially with peripheral neuropathy 18 months ago. Fortunately at the moment it is limited to my feet and I have lots of burning and stabbing sensations on the tops of both feet which I am told was brought about through a mixture of poor diet, diabetes and alcohol consumption over a number of years. In addition I also have a feeling of standing on pebbles on the soles of my feet which my neurologist has said could potentially be small fibre neuropathy. I am waiting for an MRI scan to confirm this.
I have had a foot x ray, ultrasound and an electromyography in the past and I have also been prescribed amitriptyline which only sent me to sleep, gabapentin which gave me severe stabbing pains and finally duloxetine. The last one (duloxetine) was the best of the bunch and did a marvellous job of taking the burning/stabbing feelings away but gave me a huge headache (though definitely worth it). I started to break the tablets in half because they became quite severe at times. It did nothing for the feeling I had of standing on pebbles however.
Recently I started to pay more attention to my diet and monitor the effect that certain foods had on my pain. I have eliminated all alcohol, carbohydrates and most sugars (apart from the natural sugar in berry fruits) and found that citrus fruits and salt make my pain much worse. I have kept a food diary so now I know which foods I can and can’t eat and strangely I have also discovered that consuming foods that have been chilled or frozen trigger a great deal of pain as opposed to room temperature foods which do not. I am now taking vitamin D3, B1, B12, magnesium and high strength omega 3 fish oil supplements too.
I have been on my eating plan for just one week so far and already I feel that my pain is improving.
I may not become pain free but any small improvements are a huge bonus and I plan to continue this for as long as I feel any benefit. I realise that all individuals would need to find their own trigger foods as we are all different however I suspect that sugar and carbohydrates are quite common in us all.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I do wish I had paid more attention to my diet a lot sooner than I did rather than being more reliant on medication.
I wish you well with your personal battles surrounding neuropathy.
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Thank you for the info-- and also, welcome! I'm relatively new here too still, only been about 3 weeks since I joined, I think. But we figured mum should probably watch what she eats. The issue is getting her to realize that doing that is going to help far more than it will inconvenience her, on top of getting her to remember important things like what it was she ate that caused her neuropathy symptoms to flare up or her legs to swell. Not that remembering what she ate will be difficult for either of us, her memory tends to be better more often than not but sometimes she'll have those forgetful lapses. Plus I'll be watching her so it'll be easier to record what she eats and what effects it has on her. Thanks for the idea!
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Originally Posted by Atticus
Hey SoulfulYin,
Thanks for the update,
Just a couple of things, reading through your messages
1. Pepper is fine. It helps aid digestion. This doesn't need to be avoided.
2. I take Magnesium Threonate, however I don't recommend it for you. One its very expensive and if your mom is magnesium deficient she will readily absorb any kind of magnesium.
I would go for Magnesium Oxide. This what I started off with. There are many types of magnesium because magnesium can't be by itself as a molecule it needs to be bound to something else to make it stable.
A Mg supplement is best absorbed on an empty stomach, but if she has any side effects (unlikely) take it with a meal.
Hope this helps, keep up the good work.
Atty
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Originally Posted by glenntaj
Magnesium oxide tends to be less readily absorbed into bodily tissues than other forms--it tends to get dumped into the intestines much faster, and therefore can have quite the laxative effect. Of course, some people use it precisely for that reason. 
In terms of getting magnesium into the nervous system, it likely better to have it compounded it a more complex molecule, such as a malate or chelate, that is absorbed more slowly. These still may tend to have a laxative effect, but not as much (and these also tend to be a little more expensive than oxide). |
We're getting some magnesium chelate right as I type this out. Bottle says 'Doctor's Best', so I hope so, lol. Says to take 2 tablets twice a day. My biggest issue was not really knowing how much would be too much, since I don't know her levels, even though it's safe to assume it's low. At the very least, it wouldn't hurt to have her take only 1 pill every 12 hours, would it? Just as a start?
I really wish this leg swelling thing wouldn't have happened now, of all times. Like everything's kinda just piling on, and even just the neuropathy is proving to be really taxing on my mom, even with all her progress. Although to be fair, I haven't been able to monitor what mum has been eating at my aunt's. The idea was she'd be able to eat knowing aunt would cook her something good for her, but then she says she's eating chicken alfredo and I'm pretty sure she also mentioned pancakes. Which is probably why both of her legs are a little swollen now. Either way, hopefully the magnesium will help with that, and with some dietary changes it'll eliminate the swelling entirely. Again though, the issue is getting mom to see that she needs to watch what she eats. She's very stubborn. Like she came home and just tried to eat some Ruffles chips, as though we learned nothing from just 2 weeks ago. But also, to be fair, her memory is still pretty shoddy. That probably won't go away entirely, and even if it might it'll take some months.
But enough about the bad. I just got done telling my mom that if she focuses on the bad, she won't see the good. She got down the stairs all on her own when she got home, she practically went down them like a normal, healthy person. And she has been using her cane almost exclusively. The walker's been by her bedside and she hasn't used it once since I saw her today. Also, she apparently lost 20 pounds when she last weighed herself at my aunt's. From around 280 to 260. Now we just need to keep it up. I still wish her memory was better, though. Again though, it's just gonna take time. She did pretty good remembering to take her pills and stuff for the 5 days she was at my aunt's. Most of the times I checked on her to make sure she was getting her gabapentin, she had already said she had just taken them or was about to. And I asked her once about her daily pills, about 3 days after she had arrived to my aunt's. She'd taken them all already! So it's good to know she can, for the most part, remember what she needs to without me being there to frequently remind her.
Now that she's home, her brain's moving a mile a minute. Makes it hard for me to complete a conversation with her, lol. She opened with talking about her pills and then before she could even finish her first sentence she got excited about the tilapia cuz it had very low/no sodium in it and we like tilapia. She went through like 4 different topics in a matter of seconds before I could get her to finish her first thought again. I keep trying to tell her to do 1 thing at a time, but she ain't having it.
At least she has the energy.
We've been discussing what we're gonna do as soon as she's able to drive her car again. I was thinking bowling w/ some friends & family, or maybe even just walking, lockdown restrictions permitting at least. Even if she can't actually partake in the bowling, it would be nice for her to get out of the house and go somewhere. Surround herself with friendly faces. Help her realize that she's getting better, as long as she takes things 1 day at a time.