My N-A-G trial is not going well.

First off it seems to increase my pain... my arthritis pain!

Secondly it is raising my blood sugars!

I am going to discontinue it... and see if the blood sugars come back down.

I searched glucosamine and NAG quite a bit on the net.
There is even a study to show that glucosamine does NOT raise sugars, but actually there is very little other evidence of this effect studied well. So it is possible at least for me, this is not going to work in my metabolic state.

I'll stay off it for 2 weeks, and retry. If I get elevated again, well, that will be the end of NAG for me!

edit to add: I've just researched amitriptyline now, and find it also can affect blood sugar! So DRAT... helping me sleep but now I have to stop it too? I am NOT happy about this!

What do you think of melatonin? I'm thinking of starting it not so much for the potential sleep benefit as its antioxidant power. My cell membranes are getting trashed while I sleep, I believe, because of the unmitigated PN heat stress and resultant oxidative damage.

Antioxidant

Besides its function as synchronizer of the biological clock, melatonin also exerts a powerful antioxidant activity. . . . Melatonin is an antioxidant that can easily cross cell membranes and the blood-brain barrier. . . . Melatonin's antioxidant activity may reduce damage caused by some types of Parkinson's disease. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Antioxidant

"Patients receiving melatonin during taxane chemotherapy had a reduced incidence of neuropathy. Melatonin may be useful in the prevention or reduction of taxane-induced neuropathy and in maintaining quality of life."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2883241/

There's been some success with tests on rats:

"Results suggest that oxidative stress contributes to appearance of pain in diabetes and melatonin, as an antioxidant, is effective in reducing the acute and chronic pain in diabetic rats."

http://www.ijem.org.ir/browse.php?a_...=1&slc_lang=en

I've been using melatonin for several years now. 3mg at bedtime.

It is also implicated in glucose control and exists in the pancreas.
However its link to functions there are not proven yet.

Melatonin is depressed by age, low B12 levels, and some drugs.(SSRIs and beta blockers, and drugs that depress B12)
Methylcobalamin is a cofactor in melatonin synthesis from the serotonin precursor. Melatonin doses in some studies are quite high. I wonder if many people could tolerate that.

I had a low grade inflammation along the gum line which was just fixed. It might be this low grade infection was causing my elevated sugars. I just had the crown fixed that caused that.

Three things piling up on each other. I am going to wait 2 weeks and reintroduce the NAG. And see if my sugars increase again.
In any event the NAG was not doing much positive as it was, at the time. But that was only a week or so. Maybe too soon for it.

I have also stopped the amitriptyline too.

I've just started this, too.

I just read that "magnesium stimulates the biosynthesis of melatonin," (The Magnesium Factor, p. 172), so I'll probably take Mg at the same time. Seelig and Rosanoff also noted: "magnesium has a protective effect against oxidative stress."

So, I think I'll try to combat the oxidative stress of sleep deprivation with melatonin, magnesium, and vitamin C all at the same time. They are the only calming/non-stimulative anti-oxidants I know of.

Let me know how it goes.

I use the magnesium at night, the melatonin at night and the Vit C, at night too.

Really high Vit C at night may make you get up to urinate, though. I use Ester C with bioflavinoids, 500mg.

I have not taken that, but NAC is really good.

Mrs. D,

I am sorry to hear that.

Out of curiosity, what dose were you on? I wonder if you went down to 10% of the dose you tried if you would have problems like this with the future? Maybe you could work up gradually.

I am going to play with my dose. My usual procedure is to start very low, and so I am going to cut my dose substantially.

My problem is that I started out at a high dose (I figured it was a sugar, and I cut out my regular sugar, and I am not a diabetic). Now I have to back down to find the lowest dose that will afford the optimal response.

I think I will start again at 2 grams of NAC per day, dissolved in water and taken in sips through the day.

Thanks for posting!!!

Best wishes- Cal

750mg a day in a capsule from Jarrow.