~MEDICATIONS~~ That May Cause Peripheral Neuropathy
 

This topic is becoming huge. I can recall lists from a decade ago that had just a few known drugs on them, but that has changed today.

This change is because of the widening of research into mitochondria and how damage to these energy cells in our bodies leads to disorders and disease. The autism community is heavily now into this, and has its own results and therefore its own lists of offending drugs.
Often the autism lists do not contain all of the same drugs the PN lists do. Yet.

I made this post a year ago, based on an article from Science News which explains mitochondria with pictures.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...t=mitochondria

Please read this link first, so you will have a foundation for the rest of this topic.

This post will be growing all day today, as I work on it.

Basically the drugs that are the most obvious as culprits to damaging nerves and therefore causing PN to occur are DNA disrupters. Statins, chemo drugs, some antibiotics, are the most common. But a search on this topic today, found that psychiatric drugs also damage mitochondria.

This article claims that many drugs are capable of doing this damage:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18626887

The readers here can search this topic on their own, if interested. It is quite large, and growing by the day. Use keywords such as "medication induced mitochondrial damage" or "mitochondrial damage from drugs" .

When mitochondrial damage occurs those cells cannot function normally any longer. When nerve cells are affected, then pain, and odd sensations may be the result.

Later today I will put up some lists I found of drugs (not including all the suspected ones from the PubMed list above).
There are drugs with a long history of causing nerve damage, and those lists are more cemented in fact, not suspicion.

Some of the drugs will get their own posts in this thread, because information on them, is available now. Statins, and fluoroquinolone antibiotics will have their own posts.

The small list below came from Wrong Diagnosis.com which has changed its format/name and no longer provides lists of drugs as possible causes of PN.
Some of the drugs are not used much anymore:
Chlorpropamide (type II diabetes and out of favor)
Clofribrate (but the other fibrates are still used)
Glutethimide (no longer used for insomnia)
Chloramphenicol (not in US and only for rare infections)
phenylbutazone (previously for arthritis--currently contaminants from China in herbs)
Clioquinol (not in US as oral, previously called Vioform--depletes B12 severely causing death and blindness and major damage to spinal cord)

The fluroquinolones do not appear on this list, or the other statins. So it is incomplete in that respect. It also has amitriptyline on it because some older sites listed this drug as an axonal cause of PN. This may be due to dosing, and may be a carry over from the high dose antidepressant days. Amitriptyline is now used in low dose for most PNs still.

The amino acids are sometimes listed as possible aids, are most likely lysine and carnitine. I have a post about carnitine on the Supplement thread here on this forum.

This is an interesting link. It describes how mitochondria tests are done:

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Ne...y/25020801.asp

(notice it does not say it tested ALL statins, so it remains unclear that only the 3 listed are culprits so far.) However, it does illustrate that "idiopathic" may mean "drug induced" or toxin induced....and we just don't have all the data yet on all the drugs which might be causative. I think all drugs should be suspect until proven otherwise. You may definitely need some drugs (like Coumadin) and some blood pressure drugs. But rotating them, or replacing them, may reveal a PN change and discussing this with your doctor might be helpful.

I have amended this thread further down with other lists I have subsequently found concerning drug damage in PN.
Post #17 here has some links that provide partial lists.
It is very difficult to find up to date information on this topic. There are posts scattered on this thread with new drugs that have reported PN as a side effect.

edit to add:
I found this link with a list of antibiotic drugs explaining their negative impact on nerves:
www.medlink.com/web_content/MLT002IE.asp
This link requires you to put in a keyword in the upper left, to see the
separate papers. For antibiotics put in fluoroquinolone in that
keyword box and the first paper is the antibiotic one.
That site has a strict copyright rule, so we cannot copy information from there to here.

edit to add-- here is a link explaining chemo and other drug induced damage and PN...
http://www.macalester.edu/psychology...hy/Cancer.html

edit to add: 6-12-13-- this comprehensive article on drug induced neuropathies... I haven't read it all yet...but will soon.
Here is the link:
http://www.neuropathy.org/site/DocSe...pdf?docID=1604 This article appears to be old, since newer drugs are not appearing on the lists.
(fluoroquinolones).

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics~ Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and others:
 

This family of antibiotics has over the years shown that it can be extremely toxic to some patients. Originally the fluoroquinolones were designed as 3rd or 4th tier treatment, when other antibiotics fail or there are allergies present, but as soon as these products became available doctors started to give them out to everyone for everything.

The financial success of Cipro (by Bayer), led other Big Pharma companies scrambling to make "me-too" versions to share the wealth. Some of them were total failures, and were recalled. Omniflox lasted about 2 weeks, because it was causing death very quickly upon release. Floxin came out right after Cipro and seemed to target urology problems and right away it started to cause severe neurological side effects...sometimes with only one day's use! The book Bitter Pills was written by Stephen Fried whose wife developed seizures on this drug.

More here:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2010/...n-cause-chaos/
I also saw an episode of Oprah on drug side effects, where this drug was featured as harming one of her producers. So today we don't see Floxin much anymore, but it is still available.

There are many many sites on the web now about this problem with this family of drugs. This blog appears to me to be very complete and offers links to other information sources including Facebook blogs:
http://www.levaquinadversesideeffect.com/
specifically on toxicity:
http://www.levaquinadversesideeffect...rom-wikipedia/

I'd like to address the doctor issue here. It appears that doctors are IGNORING patients' side effects, and this seems to be the root of the problem. It is a similar scenario that is occurring with Statin therapy for lowering cholesterol. It is unclear to me if this is because the drug companies have MISLED the doctors, or are giving erroneous information (as was done with Vioxx) or if the doctors are just lazy and not paying attention.
Instead of using these drugs as they were originally designed...for extreme risky interventions, they are being given freely as first line treatment for minor situations. And as a sad result many many people have been damaged with little hope of improvement.

And this is an interesting factoid about these drugs also involves doctors.
The tendon rupture effect that these drugs cause, was discovered by doctors who were using the drugs themselves (and probably freely given samples) and later after the treatment, often months later, ruptured their Achilles' tendons or knee tendons. Over time it was shown that the fluroquinolones cause this, and it can be delayed up a year after treatments! It is thought that using corticosteroids with the drugs accelerate these events. So in effect doctors were the first identified victims of these drugs. And one would think they would be more cautious, but that does not appear to be the case.

There are times and situations, where fluroquinolones HAVE to be used, to save a patient. So they are still available, but really the patients should be informed of the risks involved. Chronic use however, becomes very risky.

The various toxicities are listed in the above link on this post, but the peripheral neuropathy ones are the ones we see here on this forum.
Neuropathies are thought to be irreversible from these drugs. However, Dr. Jay Cohen MD has a website where a patient shared one intervention that helped him: IV glutathione treatment.
http://www.medicationsense.com/artic...cs_052205.html
Other supplement suggestions appear on this link including magnesium.

This link to Dr. Cohen has the glutathione recommendation:
http://medicationsense.com/articles/...ity070508.html

There are several other sites I found on Google now taking up the glutathione option.

Since fluoroquinolones are DNA disruptors I would also think that trying the supplements for mitochondrial damage may work to some extent also. Those include acetyl carnitine, CoQ-10, lipoic acid for starters. Mitochondria are bacteria that have been incorporated into mammalian cells, to act as an energy source. The DNA in them, is maternal and only inherited from the mother. Antibiotics that attack DNA of bacteria, may also harm OUR helping bacterial decendants, our own mitochondria.
It is a theory becoming highly accepted in the Autism research community and may pertain to PN patients as well. Only time will tell on this idea.

One last word. It is thought that using corticosteroids like prednisone, and also NSAIDs increase the risk of damage. Keep that in mind too, if you have to have a treatment using this family of antibiotics.

Edit to add a new link to a paper about antibiotics and PN. This link has a list of drugs that have been reported to cause nerve damage:
http://www.medlink.com/medlinkcontent.asp

Here is a link to a report of Levaquin unmasking a hereditary PN that was not causing symptoms before:
http://www.theannals.com/content/ear...pdf+html?rss=1

This is a Wiki link with alot of information and a large bibliography about fluoroquinolone toxicity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse...uoroquinolones

edit 2012:
Here is a new study with many patients showing up to a 5 fold increase in retinal detachments of the eye in people using these drugs:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....icleid=1148331

edit to add: Here is a new link July 2013 article provided by our
member Marlene: Thanks to Marlene!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0703160623.htm
Actually has a photo of mito damage by Cipro!

edit to add the new FDA warning about PN and fluoroquinolones:
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm365050.htm

Edit to add:
6-4-14-- antibiotics linked to colon cancer (including Flagyl (metronidazole) and quinolones:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...usaolp00000592
this is another reason to restore yourself with Kefir if you use antibiotics.

Zyvox (linazoilid)
 

I want to add in another antibiotic which we feel contributed greatly to John's PN. He was on this drug for about two and half months, but PN has been known to happen while on a short course of this drug. This drug is not used much because they don't want it to be resistant to bugs. It's more of a last resort antibiotic. And, it costs an arm and a leg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linezolid

If you read all of this, you'll see it too disrupts the mitochondia.

How to report a drug:
 

It takes many many years or a catastrophic event (like happened in Japan with clioquinol) to identify a drug as a cause of PN.

When drugs are still on patent, often this information is suppressed by the companies themselves.

I think ALL drugs are capable of causing negative reactions in some people. It depends on how well they metabolize the drug and their own particular genetic chemistries.
There are forms available at the FDA... Medwatch where you can report this. Also at Patientsville.com

http://www.fda.gov/safety/medwatch/h...ms/default.htm

and
http://patientsville.com/medication/...de_effects.htm

Statins (for lowering cholesterol)
 

The information about this family of drugs is very abundant now.

There are two aspects to this problem as I see it.

1) Does cholesterol really matter? What exactly is high?

2) What do these drugs really do to your body?

This post is going to focus on #1. I will make another post to provide some information on #2.

The best place to start is with the doctors around the world who do not believe in the Cholesterol Myth. This list is growing as I type this, and finding information about it is easier than it once was. The book, Cholesterol Myths, by this doctor:
http://www.ravnskov.nu/uffe.htm

As you can see by his biography he is a busy man!

Here is a very good YouTube to start this subject:
I post it often, because it is simple, logical and gets to the point quickly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8SSCNaaDcE

The doctor on that video is Dr. Malcolm Kendrick MD.
http://www.spacedoc.net/malcolm_kendrick_cholesterol

Basically there are doctors around the world questioning the Cholesterol hypothesis today.

So the first question we often see on these boards is "what is high?" and "should I take the statin suggested by my doctor"?.
These decisions cannot be totally answered here. It is a personal decision one should make after getting information on both sides of this issue. In US it is a RARE doctor who will give you the "down side" of statin therapy. That is because the drug companies have made so many billions of dollars with these drugs they jealously guard negative information about them. This is less so internationally and US doctors may be unaware of many aspects that international doctors understand.

There are some US doctors who are skeptical of statins. They may use them for treatment, but do so carefully, and monitor their patients well. But I think they are in the vast minority.

Dr. Jay Cohen MD relates a study on his website that explains how common it is for US doctors to IGNORE patient complaints of side effects from these drugs:

http://www.medicationsense.com/artic...cts012108.html

Also Dr. Graveline MD who is a former astronaut had significant problems with his Lipitor medication, and as a result he has written a book and developed a website about this problem.
http://www.spacedoc.net/

Also consider that there are lifestyles coming forward that lead to elevated cholesterol levels. This video is very new and from Univ. California medical schools, about the dangers of Fructose in our diet.
It is a long video, but in the middle when the speaker gets to the biochemistry of fructose... he shows how this sugar leads to elevated cholesterol, because of its metabolism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

So, to start off, I really suggest readers here deal with this first aspect of treatment. The links I have above are long, complex and give other links to MORE information. So I won't repeat that here. Please take the time to research your situation, and copy and take to your doctor the information that you want your doctor to consider before you start a statin regimen.

Edit -- 2-128-12--
The FDA finally adds warnings to statin drugs...may cause elevated
blood sugars and memory loss:
from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/op...tin-users.html

More warnings will follow I predict!

Edit to add: This is a very interesting read. It provides statistical input on the real effects of statins:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/w...ally_work.html
For those thinking about discontinuing their statin, or whether to take one offered, please read this paper. It may help you decide and give you something to discuss with your doctor.

Here is a link to an abstract from a Government study on statin use causing PN:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread179295.html
new edit~~
FDA encourages lower doses of simvastatin (Zocor)
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun...tatin-20110609
Edit --Thanks to Alffe today for this link: 5-14-13--
explaining how statins damage nerves, complete with photos:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0510150143.htm

Edit 7-25-13:
Harm vs benefit for statins, new statistics:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post1002533-6.html

Olsen at PD forum keeps up with the research and is a very
good resource for us too.

Edit 11-14-13 -- this link is a new thread with many new links about the dangers of statin therapy to lower cholesterol. Please check all the pages out, as there are very important points of view becoming available now.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread197080.html

One of our posters, Wide-O....found the patent information from Merck for the combo product lovastatin + CoQ-10... here is the link with the information:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post1040312-4.html
This patent was never used, because Merck could not solve the solubility problem that CoQ-10 has...so they kept this secret for about a decade. But the information did leak out eventually. But doctors remained clueless all that time while statins were damaging people!

NEW ~~ Statins may lower vaccine effectiveness. This article is about flu vaccine:

http://news.yahoo.com/popular-choles...161903662.html

I have had adverse reactions to Lipitor (my doc is sold on its benefits, but not receptive to the literature on its negatives) from the first month on it and demanded that my doc switch me to a non-statin, if she really felt it necessary for me to have low cholest. numbers.
I recommended Zetia (suggested to me, by MrsD) and have had success with it for about 4-5 years, now. My Rx insurance plan continues to try to get me to switch to a lower cost statin, and I have to get my doc to submit a waiver for me, about every 6-12 mos.- but I won't go back on a statin.

Are Statins safe?
 

Here are some new statistics on the value of statins (not as high as one would think), vs the actual risk of damage from them:

http://www.naturalnews.com/028988_st...e_effects.html

Statins and the elderly:
 

http://www.cmellc.com/geriatrictimes/g040618.html

explains mitochondrial damage in the elderly from statins.

Statins and the heart: 2009 study showing effects on heart muscle:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/...heart-function

Also this is interesting... a "new" name for statin muscle symtoms?

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new...gia-rheumatica
The elderly are now being diagnosed with this condition today.

In Europe the first links to interstitial lung disease was found a couple of years ago ..but US lagged in reporting. Here is a 2012 paper from US about it:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22246178
and
http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/conten....201108-1574OC
Something to think about if you are a smoker.

More on pulmonary fibrosis: The statistics are amazing!
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/02/22/i...ce-by-doctors/

I have PN from my quinolone reaction. It has bee over a year and a half in it still progresses so I believe it must have an autoimmune characteristic. On the glutathione I would suggest avoiding it and also mega supplementation especially ALA which causes its own problems over time. I have tried all of the above and more and wish I had done nothing and just let my body do its work to heal with maybe some very basic supplementation. There is not majic answer, we have been screwed over by our own system and doctors who practice lazy medicine. Warn your loved ones and try to endure and time may bless you with some healing.

Seroquel
 

I believe that Seroquel definitely caused my peripheral neuropathy (PN). Will stopping the drug, as I have one month ago, allow me a remission? I had taken the Seroquel for about 5 years.

Will valium relieve symtoms of PN? It seems my walking is worse with taking of valium.

Welcome to our board!

I could not find a specific thing on PubMed for this drug and neuropathy. However, this drug and others in its class can greatly impact metabolism and sugar control, and these things then can create a neuropathy. It would be similar to diabetic neuropathy or insulin resistance. Also this drug raises triglycerides, and that makes the blood thicker, and thicker blood can cause neuropathy sensations in the hands and feet.

Drugs like Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin are useful in the short term for reducing sensory burning, and other feelings in the skin. But over long term use, they induce an habituation, which then leads to MORE burning sensations, and when trying to discontinue them, can be very painful and difficult.

You might want to look at my supplements thread here, because some diabetic neuropathies respond to:

alpha lipoic acid (or the newer r-lipoic)
acetyl carnitine
benfotiamine ( a better form of thiamine B1)

You really should look at B12 and Vit D. (some type II diabetics have low D levels). Your B12 should be above 400, and your D should be above 50ng/ml. (some doctors think lower levels are "normal" and that is out of date information).
Brings these two up to normal can also help.

I took levaquinn 2002 for three days and stopped cause I had rash. But again I already had my symptoms way before this. But either along the way these things worsened my situation or added a problem.

I have taken
Augmentin, biaxin, zpack, clindamycin, bactrim
Omnicef.
So I guess it's impossible at this point to say what did this and again if it's medicine or a disease.

Tindamax:
 

http://www.rxlist.com/tindamax-drug.htm

This drug is new, and chemically related to Flagyl (metronidazole).

It is currently approved for:
Trichomoniasis
Giardiasis
Bacterial Vaginosis
Amebiasis

Flagyl is a known causer of PN also.

I have been on many antibiotics over the years and have seen several infectious disease docs who have all agreed that Flagyl and Tindamx can cause neuropathy. If you research the respective PI, you will see neuropathy listed as a potential side effect.

Here is a link to a paper from 1979 which while old and will not have newer drugs on it, still lists the drugs that may cause neuropathies. They are listed according to type of PN which may be helpful for some people visiting here.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=...Jqu4UctUx33kIA

links broken in first post....
 

I checked this thread today, and found some links have expired, or the site was changed.

I am going to try and find a better resource, but this topic is difficult to find on the net.

I'll keep looking so we can have a useful list here. (I should have copied them....dang...but we have copyright rules here which prevented me from doing so.).

This is another list, also incomplete:
http://www.neuropathy.org/site/News2...s_iv_ctrl=1221

This link has a list of the various heavy metal poisons and solvents that can cause neuropathy:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1175276-overview

This one is also incomplete, but has some agents listed missed by the other lists: Merck Manual:
http://www.merckmanuals.com/professi...europathy.html

I will make a list, hard to pick out the meds. Is there a list?

Also, I wonder if there is a "safer" antibiotics. The only one I can take safely is Duricef. Old one but I have never had a problem. The others have given me side effects. They are life saving, but they sure are serious meds.

Technically only certain antibiotics make the "list"....

Flagyl, fluoroquinolones, and others mentioned here.

BUT...some autism sites mention other antibiotics used long term may damage mitochondria also... I recall amoxicillin mentioned.
This is because some kids with autism diagnoses, have had long term "simple" antibiotics for chronic ear infections, and they were looking at that as a possible mito disruptor. Those antibiotics have not made it the lists as the clinically reported ones because the reported ones made it on short term usage. Mitochondria are decendents of bacteria and as such would be prone to damage from drugs that kill bacteria.

Click on the links on all the posts here to see the lists.
The longest list was at Wrong diagnosis website, which was totally changed and overhauled and that is no longer on the web, for whatever reason now.

Yes, long term use is always a different story.:( I do know Gentamicin is Ototoxic, BAD news. My ENT told me never to take that and I stay away from all micins.

Are floroquinalones on this list? Same as quinalones I guess, I had to take Cipro when my Duricef didn't work for the last UTI. OUCH, I had muscle pain.

Leviquin is a foroquialone, yikes. I had to take it once for a bad Diverticulitus attack. They are all so scary. Would be nice if I could find another one I can take in case I need it. Thank goodness for Duricef.

http://www.emedexpert.com/lists/antibiotics.shtml#5

Toxins and Chemicals that damage the body:
 

I don't know where else to put this list, so for now I am putting
it here:
42 Common toxic chemicals and what they do to the body:

http://www.mcsbeaconofhope.com/42_co...als_and_th.htm

Long term use of Prilosec and other acid blockers
 

may cause PN through malabsorption of nutrients within the gastrointestinal tract. I took the stuff for 10 years and I'm paying the price now. Never once did the doctors warn me of the potential consequences of taking it long term.

I did notice on a recent Prilosec advertisement that they warned of the possibility of lowered magnesium levels while taking this drug so there is a greater awareness now. I have made gradual improvements the last couple of years since abstaining from this medicine and living a healhier life style. I rarely have heatburn anymore.

So many meds are toxic so I take meds only if no other choice at all.

I just heard again yesterday on the radio that granite countertops cause out-gassing. I know HGTV pushes them as the preferred countertop these days.

I guess nothing is safe!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/ga...pagewanted=all

I need my granite. Nice that they all don't do that.:)

Metformin for Diabetics Depletes Vitamin B12
 

*edit*
I'm sorry that I cannot give you the link to the full article, being a newb, but if you search Google for Stephen Ponder, you should find it OK

I found that I was quite anaemic, and even after taking tablets and using skin patches, I still needed injections of B12.
It was obvious that the neuropathy was getting worse even tho' I was observing all dietary rules, and moderately exercising. I'm waiting for the B12 injections to start working.
luv2all
footloose

Anyone on any sort of--
 

H2 antagonist or proton pump inhibitor is well advised to do oral B12 supplementation, especially if older than 50 years.

B12, like most proteins and protein-bound nutrients, needs the action of stomach acid to be broken out of food and absorbed, and people on these acid-reducing meds for significant periods of time do risk deficiencies, especially if they already may be predisposed.

I am, at least, seeing references to possible B12 deficiencies in the warnings about these meds lately.

Amen Brother!

In addition to B12, folate also appears impacted by these drugs...... In the last year or so it has really come become clear to me how much the general public is unaware of these issues. It gives me some solice knowing that we can freely discuss these issues on an open forum. Hopefully more people will discover these topics and use them to their benefit by doing futher research like many of us have done within this community.

The list "so far" of nutrients negatively affected by acid blocking drugs is:

Protein digestion impaired
B12
Folate
calcium
magnesium
zinc
iron

These are the ones so far that require an acid environment to
be absorbed correctly as nature intended.

alarming food connections:
 

There are reports of a drug on the PN causation lists which is also quite toxic to the bone marrow, showing up in shrimp that are farmed in Thailand and other countries.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500262_162-644203.html

A longer article:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.p.../article/4395/

Chloramphenicol in honey from China:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/vet/f...enicol-eng.php

This drug is still available as Chloromycetin for rare, life threatening disease states, but was removed from sale in most countries otherwise in the 70's due to its toxicity.

Horse meat:
http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/chemic...untries_en.htm
This article details why horse meat may be dangerous, and it lists chloramphenicol and nitrofurans (this is Macrodantin/Macrobid a drug used in humans for bladder infections) may be present in the meat.
The article is pretty complex, but if you use the search function in Windows edit=find...you'll find the warnings.

Atenolol?
 

Should atenolol be added to this list/thread?

I came across this snippet by accident this morning...
...which got me to :Hum: so I searched the PN forum(s) and only found that several people here with PN (besides myself) have taken atenolol.

Going to google, I find some hits, but nothing really concrete. There's one site that pops up several times, but IME, they tend to link everything as a cause for everything (I think just to get hits on their site for advertisers?)

Checking my own records, I stopped taking atenolol (for migraine prophylaxis) around the time my PN manifested, but have no recollection nor notes suggesting any connection at that time.

My mental processing runs this way: If atenolol were to cause Type II diabetes (or interfere in some way with feeding peripheral nerves) which in turn begat PN, and then the atenolol were stopped, might the diabetes remit (failing to manifest on subsequent tests for diabetes) yet the damage to nerves having been done... Follow?

Anything's possible; I'm just not finding anything obvious on Pubmed (and not literate enough in medicalese to translate) or elsewhere credible.

If nothing is found it might make sense to delete this post to avoid any confusion.

Doc

Beta blockers used to be first line for Blood pressure. And that population is huge. Over time it was shown that patients',
low blood sugars (a warning sign of pre-diabetes or reactions to diabetic meds,) were masked by the beta blockers. Masking lows, is dangerous for diabetics and pre-diabetics as they cannot feel the changes lows bring. I don't think beta blockers CAUSE diabetes commonly, but they certainly cloud this issue quite a bit. There will always be some people, taking them who already have insulin resistance and/or prediabetes, and they would show up in studies.

Also beta blockers cause broncospasms (a breathing emergency), and raise lipids. They also cause reduced cardiac output, so aerobic exercise is blunted and affected. People really complain about this effect quite a bit. Difficult to even climb stairs for some!
So they were replaced in BP management by ACE inhibitors. But some people still take them.

Beta Blockers do have a risk for myopathy...
but it is not common:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2070426

I think the most likely scenario is the cold hands, cold feet that beta blockers can cause. Changes in circulation from anything can impact nerves in the distal periphery in a bad way.

This list is mostly for known direct acting toxic type drugs.
But atenolol (and other beta blocking drugs) have the potential for being a secondary trigger I guess, depending on the person and other medical factors present.

Hello. I know this is an old post, but I am longing to ask someone you whether your peripheral neuropathy went away, and how long it took.

Are you still suffering? I hope not.

Hope you are still there--take care.

Diclofenac?
 

Hi!
Does anyone suspect long term use of diclofenac contributing to nerve damage?

Thanks.

I'm not positive, but my ortho put me on diclofenac, and it has made everything 2x worse. I went off of it the second I realized this.

hello I am new here. I have developed numbness, tingling and muscle weakness over my whole body after just one day on Metronidazole antibiotics given to me by my dentist for a tooth infection. I went to emergency hospital and was checked over and had CT scan. All fine but 6 days later, the symptoms are still there. Am feeling very panicky that they will never go away.

I stopped the tablets when I looked at the side effects of Metronidazole included PN, numbness, etc.

I have now been referred to a neurologist by my doctor. My son is disabled with a neurological disorder so I do not relish seeing a neuro - have avoided them for 7 years with my son now.

I had been taking a multivitamin complex for about a month before which had high levels of B vits and was worried about B6 being too high - 75mg I think.

Does anyone know anything about this? I've searched the internet and found a lot of evidence for the side effect but not much about whether the symptoms can be helped or permanent.

Not sure if I should try any supplements. Am taking fish oil supplement and contemplating COQ10 and Acetyl L Carnitine having read this website. Bit scared about B vits. I have a healthy diet, don't eat meat and since this year have not had antibiotics for many, many years - I avoid medication as much as poss, even painkillers.

Thank you!

Welcome to NeuroTalk:

At this point, I would ask you to get a blood test for B12.

I'd stop the complex 2 weeks before the test.

There are some considerations at this point.
1) if you have a genetic problem called Charcot Marie Tooth,
a drug may push you into symptoms if you have not had them previously. Most CTM patients however show some symptoms when young.

2) If you are low in B12 or use any other drug that is problematic for PN, your problem may be additive with it.

3) Since you don't eat meat...you could be low in B12...so that needs to be addressed.

Thanks for your reply. I will check my Vitamin B12 levels. The symptoms are still there but I think they have slightly improved.

I do eat cheese and eggs daily but will up my fish, too.

Is it safe to take Vitamin B12 on its own? Thanks again for all your help.

B12 is one of the safest vitamins to take:
Here is our B12 thread with medical links etc.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread85103.html
Yes it is best to take alone, but you can use a complex
later in the day if you choose. B12 should be taken orally on
an empty stomach, at least 1000mcg a day.

Stop all supplements for about a week before testing.
You should test above 400 US units, pg/ml