These recommendations will help heal damage and reduce PN symptoms from many causes, such as diabetes, drug or other toxin damage, viral or bacterial attack, nerve entrapment, surgical damage, poor blood circulation, and hereditary or idiopathic peripheral neuropathy. What follows has been learned from years of research. All recommendations have some empirical and/or scientific basis. I urge you to check on each recommendation before trying it. A good way to check is to double click on www.google.com and enter the topic. For example entering “vitamin e peripheral neuropathy” (without the quotes) will generate a list of sources for research results for vitamin E and peripheral neuropathy.

We are each different from each other. Talk with your health care professional before starting any diet, supplement, or exercise program. For most of us, all of these recommendations are safe, but individuals may have conditions or be taking medications incompatible with some recommendations. An example is SAMe which should not be taken by people with bipolar disorder or taking certain mood changing drugs.

This is a special note about skeptical physicians. Your doctor may say something like, “Save your money and your energy. Nothing will help heal your PN. All you’ll do is create some very expensive urine.” In answer to that, everything recommended here has at least some empirical and/or scientific backing for being effective for PN (as opposed to anecdotal or conjectural backing).

Everything recommended here is safe. As far as I know at this point, no drugs are effective for promoting healing for hereditary or idiopathic PN. No drugs provide more than partial pain relief. All drugs have side effects. Side effects are cumulative the longer a drug is taken. Side effects for combinations of drugs are additive or multiply each other. A basic principle of healing is to first do no harm. Nothing recommended here will do harm as far as I know unless special circumstances exist.

So, talk with your doctor first, take his or her specific recommendations if you have a special condition that will be harmed by anything here. But this program gives you the possibility of safely and powerfully dealing with your PN, reducing symptoms, and even healing. If your doctor only recommends drugs for partial symptom relief without a complete diagnostic workup or any possibility of healing, I think the choice is clear. I had two neurologists offer me Elevil or Neurontin at the first appointment, with minimal testing. Neither is 100% safe, and neither is very effective. You can always try drugs after giving this program a chance. However, because of building drug tolerance, it is difficult to stop drugs once you’ve used them for an extended period for chronic pain.

A final caveat is that this does not take the place of medical treatment. Some of us have conditions that require medical care. Examples include diabetes, infectious disease, amyloidosis, etc. Even in these cases, what follows will be helpful.


This program to reduce pain and help heal your PN encompasses diet, supplements, exercise, dealing with emotional factors, and getting the help you need. In our lives, there is a spread effect, where optimizing one thing helps other areas in your life. Good builds on good and bad on bad. If you eat right, you will feel better and will be more willing to try supplements. As you heal you’ll be on a more emotional even keel. That will help you get the family and other support you need. You will be more apt to start an exercise program.

Generally, most research was done using only one factor such as a particular supplement, a diet change, exercise, etc. In the few cases where more than one factor was tested at the same time, a synergistic effect was found where the healing effect was greater than the effects of each factor alone. If you do the program, do the whole program for maximum benefit.

Diet

A PN diet provides the proper amounts and balance of essential fatty acids and is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, and nerve healing phytochemicals. That is similar to the Omega diet as described in “The Omega Diet: The Lifesaving Nutritional Program Based on the Diet of the Island of Crete” by Dr. Artemis P. Simopoulos and Jo Robinson (Amazon page is http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...8941114/sr=8-2/ ref=sr_8_2/104-0955084-5711960 ). The book is an easy read and is full of good recipes and daily menus. I easily converted to the omega diet. My blood pressure came down 25 points in a year, and my PN is much better. I think the omega diet is one of the main reasons. A similar PN healthy diet is the Mediterranean Diet ( http://www.americanheart.org/presen...identifier=4644 , http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...0914342-4696631 ).

The bulk of your calories should come from vegetables, fruit, healthy protein sources, and whole grains. Eat easy to digest protein daily, such as one or two eggs (one yoke a day is OK), fish, tofu, beans. You don’t need meat for every meal. A little, like 4 oz. of lean meat once a day won’t hurt.

Dairy should be in small quantities if at all, like a little yogurt or cheese. Milk allergies are very common and can lead to or add to chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic sinusitis, irritated bowel syndrome, acid reflux, and other conditions with an autoimmune component. Most adults cannot digest milk sugar. On the other hand, the bacteria in live culture yogurt are good for your digestion and general healthy, so eat yogurt if you can handle it.

Avoid concentrated refined sugars or pure fructose. They are hard on your liver and pancreas, meaning they are hard on your nerves. A teaspoon of white sugar or honey in a cup of coffee or tea with a meal won’t hurt you. A 12 oz. Coke or Pepsi has 9-12 teaspoons of sugar! A Frappacino has about 20 teaspoons of sugar! That will hurt you. Apple juice is almost as bad. If you must have a sweet drink, mix apple juice ½ with water and ice it. That way, you’ll only get 5 teaspoons of sugar all at once. The best drink is plain water. If you must have sweets, try two Hershey’s Kisses a day. We all need sweet kisses in our lives!

Avoid anything deep fried because the fat oxidizes and becomes filled with all kinds of nasty chemicals. The same is true with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Read labels for this. The only way your body can handle hydrogenated oils is to turn them into cholesterol and free radicals. The SAD (standard American diet) is full of hydrogenated oil. It is in margarine (butter is better for you, not good but better), packaged pastry, chips, some cereals, candies, and many breads. This was the hardest for me to cut out, but I don’t miss that stuff at all now. This is thoroughly discussed in “The Omega Diet.” by Dr. Simopoulos. If you don’t believe her, just look up “partially hydrogenated oil health” in www.google.com . It will make a believer out of you. Thankfully, labeling is improving and more products made with healthier oils are available every day.

The right oils are essential for healing. You should only use olive and canola oil at home. Both help your nerves and your blood vessels. Canola oil is 50% omega 3 fatty acids which will help heal your nerves. Olive oil has cancer fighting components and helps clean your blood vessels. You should have at least 2 tablespoons of each oil daily. You can also get healthy oils with a small handful of nuts a day or some avocado on a sandwich instead of butter or mayo.

The Omega and Mediterranean Diets err on the side of being too starchy for us. Many of us PNers have insulin resistance. Starch acts just like sugar in this regard. An 8 oz. baked potato with or without skin yields more blood glucose than 8 oz. of pure sucrose, and it spikes just as quickly. The same holds true for any white flour product. Avoid starch. What starch you do have should be whole grain with other foods to slow down the digestion of the starch and absorption of the glucose and to supply healthy grain bran nutrients.

It sounds like a lot of don’ts and a lot of depriving yourself, but that’s not the case. I just started substituting one thing a week. It was easy, and the food is delicious. For example, for a typical dinner we'd have grilled salmon, brown rice or a baked yam, , zucchini and chopped onions sautéed in olive oil with herbs, a tossed salad with tomatoes and a dressing of 50/50 of canola and olive oil, lemon juice, pepper, garlic, and feta cheese. For desert, we’ll have some fresh fruit. We drink water or unsweetened tea most meals. Almost every meal at home is delicious unless I mess up in the preparation.

Three other diets perfect for PN are Syndrome X (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=glance&s=books ) , the Zone Diet (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...0914342-4696631 , http://www.drsears.com/drsearspages/ ), and the South Beach Diet (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...0914342-4696631 , http://www.southbeachdiet.com/landi...0D-D9B4A75063DB ).

These diets are similar to the Omega and Mediterranean diets. They stress controlling insulin resistance and glucose levels. They are more highly structured with menus, recipes, web pages, and many books. If you like structure, any of these three will do for you. If you are on a limited budget or are frugal, all of these are available in most libraries. The new USDA Food pyramid is similar to these recommendations (http://www.mypyramid.gov/ ).

This is the end of part 1. See part 2 below for vitamins, minerals, supplements, emotional factors, lifestyle, and other delightful goodies.