There is a lot of wisdom in this post. A while back I supplemented with zinc. Then, I noticed that my multivitamin contained zinc, my calcium/magnesium supplement contained zinc, and my good diet alone probably contained all the zinc I needed. The total was well over the recommended maximum for zinc, so I stopped the separate zinc supplement and switched to a ca/mg supplement that contains vitamin D instead of zinc.

I wonder about cutting out the B-complex 50. The safe upper limit of B-6 ( from the iherb health encyclopedia is 100 mg/day ( http://healthlibrary.epnet.com/GetCo...chunkiid=21852 ) with over 200 mg/day possibly causing nerve damage. 50 mg. should be safe. Healthy nerves need a good supply of the B vitamins to function properly. Our damaged nerves need B vitamins more than healthy nerves to function and to heal. As we age, we don't absorb nutrients from our food as efficiently as youngsters. For these reasons, I strongly feel that we PNers need to supplement. A daily B-50 is a reasonable and safe amount of B vitamins for us in my opinion. Additional supplementation of B vitamins is probably not called for.* The tiny amount of B vitamins in a daily multi-vitamin isn't much of a factor and daily multi-vitamins are an insurance policy of sorts.

There is a lot of research that supports that position, research that your doctor probably isn't familiar with. Compared to the rest of the world, American medicine is very drug and surgery oriented, and far less oriented toward healing with diet, herbs, and supplements. So, it behooves us to do our own research and learn from forums such as this.

When two things happen, one after another, we naturally make a connection and perceive that the first thing caused the other. In fact, there may be a causal connection, or not. With PN especially, symptoms fluctuate a lot day to day and hour to hour. Yesterday my feet were very painful, today they are only mildly tingly. I had cereal for for breakfast yesterday and eggs today. For breakfast from now on I'm going to avoid PN-causing cereal and have PN-relieving eggs instead!


*As a complication, a very few of us cannot metabolize pyridoxine, the form of B-6 in our food and in most supplements. For those few of us, supplementation with the p-5-p form of B-6 is necessary. We had a few dramatic cures of PN in people who started supplementing with p-5-p.