Perhaps I have overlooked it, but there doesn't seem to be a thread for this. I have read quite a lot about claims and ensuing clinical research on treating neuropathic pain with Agmatine sulfate. Has anyone tried this before and, if so, then how was your experience? I am considering trying it.

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This is not exactly a "drug"...it is a chemially altered (and therefore can have a patent to make $$) of arginine, which is an amino acid used OTC as a supplement to improve circulation.

Some mechanisms for PN involve loss of circulation, or damage to the small vessels around nerves. Then the nerves cannot get nutrients or get rid of metabolic byproducts properly and then become damaged or dead. So by improving blood flow, it is thought that this one kind of PN may be helped. Arginine is also found in many OTC erectile support supplements.

The downside of arginine is that viruses in the body use this amino acid to replicate. The classic example is the shingles virus, Herpes Zoster, which lives in people for life who have been infected with chicken pox. One mechanism for people with full body pain is suggested to be a viral trigger of some sort, which then damages the dorsal roots along the spine and in people with a genetic inability to repair this damage, remains a problem for life with sensory disturbances. Most people with viral damage do get better as the nerve growth factors repair this damage. But a small % have the genetic defect and cannot repair. Research is going on now, to perhaps create a stem cell therapy for this type of problem.

So arginine is a stimulus for triggering dormant viruses. It is the major downside to using it regularly for various treatments IMO.
Another virus implicated like the Zoster, is Epstein Barr.

I've seen commonly many patients in long term care with bedsores, being given high dose Arginine to help heal them.
Within a short time, those on the Arginaid products (medical food product powder) end up with a Shingles attack on top of the bedsore problem!

Have you read the AlkaSeltzer threads here? Please search that, because if you respond to AlkaSeltzer original formula, it will tell you that your pain, is inflammatory and perhaps acidic.
The AlkaSeltzer has always worked for me, but because it contains aspirin, it should be used only in bursts to avoid any bleeding side effects over time that aspirin causes. AlkaSeltzer has the aspirin in solution which protects the stomach somewhat but systemically over time the aspirin affects platelets. So if it does work for you, doctor supervision is required for long term use. (Do not use the Cold or flu products, as they have different ingredients and are not the same). WalMart has their Equate brand which is very very inexpensive-- just over $2.00 for 36 doses. It is a huge savings.

Regarding Arginine, I too have reservations about using the amino acid in the off chance taking it causes an imbalance. On another forum, there was a post about maintaining proper NO (nitric oxide) levels. Lack of NO can contribute to poor circulation. Like you stated, many have used arginine for that purpose. Well, this product uses beet root powder as the primary ingredient along with hawthorne berry, L-citruline and sodium nitrate. Also has Vit C and B12 ( methyl and cyan). They state that people over 40 do not convert arginine into NO efficiently and their product takes a different approach.


It's pricey too. What's interesting is they have NO test strips so you check your levels. Wonder how many beets you would have to juice to get the same benefit.

http://www.neogenis.com/neo40-daily.html

It seems there is no win-win with anything I want to try. Having said that, I wasn't asking about arginine. I know that agmatine is derived from L-arginine through decarboxylation (the removal of a carboxylic acid group), but it is no longer the same. Therefore arginine and agmatine don't necessarily have the same effects. For instance, arginine increases NOS, while agmatine inhibits iNOS.

In my research, I found that people take lycine to counter the stimulation of dormant HSV by arginine. I did not find, however, how it does this. Could it be connected to the carboxyl group that is attaced in arginine, but missing in agmatine? I don't know.

I did learn this though. L-arginine apparently inhibits Epstein-Barr virus reactivation in EBV-positive cells by inducing iNOS and generating NO. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12490409 . Unfortunately, that might suck because EBV has been associated with neuropathy as well and, as mentioned earlier, Agmatine inhibits iNOS. Could that mean that Agmatine is bad to take if you have EBV?

In regards to those patients with long term care and bedsores receiving arginine to heal, I suspect many are elderly and probably should receive the shingles vaccine. That would go a long way to helping prevent an outbreak.

I am interested in the potential connection between a possible virus and my isfn. Historically speaking, my flare-ups seem to be triggered or, at least, proceeded by some sort of sickness. Often I would get muscle twitching, deep fatigue, slightly lowered temperature, joint, muscle and generally diffuse pain and depression. Soon the itchy sensations come on and turn to wasp-like stings then back to prickly and itchy sensations. This latest bout has turned to a sunburn-like feeling over ever square inch of my body. I had never had that before, but now that I have it, it seems to want to stay. In the past, I have always had periods of complete remission and recovery. I am hopeful I will get there eventually, but, with each passing week, I am becoming more dubious.

I am going off on a tangent here as I meant for this to be about agmatine and others experiences so I may repost this on another thread, but I have wondered if some sort of virus is responsible for my condition or triggers it. I had a severe case of chicken pox at 25 years of age. I was covered with pock marks and, apparently, came close to dying. I have often wondered if that is, at least, partially why I have sfn. Fluoroquinolones may have been a big factor too, but that heads off on an another entirely different tangent thus taking us further from the agmatine question. Sorry, but I do have a tendency to drift from the subject.

So has anyone tried or thought about trying agmatine?

Well, since this Agmatine is OTC you can try it if you want.

It appears the main action may be NMDA antagonism. The NO connection is still possible.

I'd take 1 or 2 grams of lysine just as insurance.
Here is a list put out by a Herpes group of foods and their arginine and lysine content. Try to keep lysine always higher than arginine to keep any virus dormant.

http://www.herpes.com/Nutrition.shtml

You might look up Parvo virus too. Some adults who have this get inflammatory pain syndromes, joint pain, etc.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2007/0201/p373.html

One of our adult MS members here was recently diagnosed with this after a TIA/ minor stroke. She had significant pain from it.
I am not suggesting you have this, but just providing this information since you connect your problems to a previous illness.

I have had cold sores a few times in my life, so I know I have HSV-1, but I also know I don't have HSV-2. I did have Chicken Pox (Herpes Zoster), but I am not sure about the 5 other Herpes Viruses, although it is likely that we all have several of them. Most of these viruses have very defined symtoms and aren't suspect as a potential causes of other diseases unless you are severely immunocompromised as is the case with AIDS. The most suspect of these is EBV and, as I pointed out, Agmatine probably inhibits it. With that in mind, I am going to do a trial of Agmatine for a couple of months. Hopefully I will find some real benefit from it or, at least, some placebo effect. I will let everyone know if I believe it helped at all.

This is interesting.
http://www.painmed.org/2012posters/abstract-285/
http://www.neurology.org/content/82/...plement/P7.094

There are many papers on PubMed for agmatine.
This one suggests it lowers blood pressure... (by relaxing blood vessels, like arginine does).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24800210

While this is a rat study (like most on PubMed)...suggestions of complex metabolic actions explain why body builder types seem
to use this more than others:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24523404

Keep in mind since most of the articles list NMDA antagonism, like magnesium and dextromethorphan, and the RX drug Namenda.... that this may be the major pain mechanism.
That also suggests you should AVOID MSG in foods because this additive is a factor in stimulating the NMDA receptor (pain receptors).

Wiki has a pretty good article on NMDA receptors for the list of agents that block it.

This article about reducing fibrosis is also interesting. Some people produce fibrosis in tissues, in abundance, and this can cause compressions. It is one mechanism in TOS pain, for example.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24505053
Another agent sometimes used in fibrosis is Trental (Pentoxifylline). There are some posts about this RX drug on our
TOS forum.

There seems to be a lack of human data on agmatine. One of the links in your post above involves only 5 patients. 5 is just not enough to be exciting at this time. Lots of rat studies though.