NeuroTalk Support Groups - View Single Post - Health Advice for Peripheral Neuropathy & Drug Induced/ Toxic Neuropathy

mrsD · 12-20-2012, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse M

Thanks for the links. They have been very helpful.

In fact, It's hard to believe that I was NOT told about Benfotiamine, since I asked my neurologists over and over again if there was some-kind of vitamin or natural substance that could ease my PN pains and they simply answered "no." Although it was my therapist that insisted I take the B12.

After reading your links, I feel that I should have been taking Benfotiamine along with my other supplements long ago. I've never taken a Benfotiamine supplement before. I seen 1 type at my GNC -the reason I didn't buy it before was because I thought it was essentially the same as B12 and I didn't want to overdose by taking 2 supplement of the same make. Now I know they are not the same, but very different vitamins.

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mrsD: I want to ask you a few questions about yourself, and I hope I'm not rude or prying in any sense.

Do you work in the medical field? - you have an astonishing amount of helpful biomedical knowledge.

Could you tell me your personal story on PN - as in how you got it? Are you a diabetic? And how do you feel now, as in do you feel your life has improved on a daily basis?

I hope I'm not asking too many personal questions, just that I'm curious as to how well you have fared with this affliction.

--I also wanted to personally thank you for giving me some advice that really helped me. For example: I would never have started taking the right kind of magnesium without your advice.

If you look at my profile, you'll see my history.

I have told my story so many times, I am not going to do it again. enough for me. I've been online for over a decade now.
I started with PN in my feet and hands when I was about 30 yrs old. Mine began with hypothyroidism, and now I have some insulin resistance to deal with.
If you read the board consistently you can piece my history together yourself.
I prefer NOT to use drugs for my PN. The only one I have now RX is tramadol, and I only take 1/2 of that when in significant pain at night which is not often. Amitriptyline did not work for me, and it raised my blood sugar...so I only took it for a week.

Everything I put up here is substantiated in many studies.
I always put links up for people to read and decide for themselves, what they want to do. I know how to search for things, quickly because I know about them and know how to make accurate keywords. I learned that when I first started using the internet. I also type very fast, and that saves me time.
I search something every day and when I find links to help with PN I put them up here, for everyone to see.

I am very experienced with supplements AND drugs. 40+yrs.
I maintain a degree of privacy online for several reasons. And I would appreciate respect for that. This IS the internet after all.

If you start with regular thiamine, which is very inexpensive, and you only found 300mg tablets?????... Thiamine typically comes OTC in 50mg and 100mg tablets. You can start at 100mg a day and work up to a max of 300mg a day. This can work and give a clue as to being helpful. When that happens you can switch to the better form benfotiamine (since you cannot find it locally).

BENFOTIAMINE is different, and handled in the body differently.
So once a person is on it for while I prefer to suggest that 150mg a day in enough. I don't want people to develop vitamin dependency issues, and because I am conservative, I don't really believe in high doses of things...as research is not closed on these topics.

If you choose the thiamine 300mg you found, break it in half and take the 1/2 tablet morning and night. Regular thiamine causes an odor, in some people, but it is harmless. The Benfotiamine has no odor that I can detect in myself, and others don't report that either.

You could go to WalMart or Target or anywhere and find smaller dose tablets for less than $4.00/100. GNC has hugely inflated prices on things as well as many "health food" specialty stores who are profit driven. WalMart has an excellent supplement aisle now, with quality manufacturers. Look there, for better doses of thiamine. The majority of generic items in large stores in the midwest all come from Perrigo company. A quality place for decades.
http://www.perrigo.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrigo