Dextrose cream for nerve pain?
 

Have any of you heard of or used topical dextrose cream for neuropathy? My doctor mentioned this as a possibility and he sells the cream for 40$ at his office. He explained that neural prolotherapy which some of you may know about involves injecting dextrose right next to the injured nerve or superficially to it and that for superficial nerves like mine they've been finding dextrose topically applied can also help.

I opted to go with the more well known topical painkiller compounded cream (lidocaine, gabapeptin, ketamine, dicloflenac, and a couple others I forget) from a pharmacy prescription he wrote for me and investigate this dextrose thing first before paying out of pocket. As far as I know dextrose is just sugar so it seems a little far fetched rubbing dissolved sugar into the skin would help. I've only been able to find a few anecdotal mentions of it from doctors: http://www.drreeves.com/Treatment-Va...gulating-Cream

I wonder if I could just get some powdered dextrose for a few cents and mix it into my compounded pharmacy cream when I apply it? I just don't know if the dextrose would interfere with something else. I've also seen those glucose gel tubes for diabetics contain dextrose and might try that. Unless there's some magic ingredient in the cream my doctor sells to get the dextrose through the skin I feel like 40$ is a bit of a high markup for dextrose.

I don't know anything about the science behind this, but the skeptical hairs on the back of my neck jump up & down screaming WT— :Ponder: any time a "doctor" sells a product out of his/her office.

The typical answer is something like, "Because I've researched this, and this brand is better than all the others because... yadda, yadda, yadda..." and oft-times when I've looked for that brand elsewhere, it turns out it's a product ONLY marketed through "alternative medicine" practitioners (i.e. you can't get it anywhere else that doesn't get a HUGE markup) which ALSO causes my neck hairs to bristle, only by this time they're screaming, "RUN!" :eek:

I think I would ask your compounding pharmacist about it, and if s/he could add it (prescribed by your doctor) to your other cream.

Doc

Yea, I had the same initial reaction about him selling it from the office.

Just been doing a bit more research and found a few more links, nothing very solid in terms of experimental research but some proposed explanations for the mechanism, namely calming the TRPV1 receptor.

http://www.painrelief.be/paincycle.html
http://prologel.com/research/
http://www.palmettospine.com/treatme...ions-spni.html

Well, prolotherapy is another matter. The purpose is to injure or almost destroy the nerve, to stimulate repair. I fail to see how dextrose on the skin is going to work, unless it is a special transdermal vehicle. Even then, the concentration has to be high, as it is an osmotic working factor. Dextrose will not pass thru normal skin without facilitation.

Your mixture of drugs will be in a special base that carries them thru the skin into the body. If you try to mix glucose into your cream, it may crack the base and cause separation. Concentrated salts do that to creams as a rule. They break the tiny membranes holding the drugs in an emulsion. So then it may separate and not work. You can ask the pharmacist at the compounding pharmacy, to be sure.

Thanks MrsD. I'll refrain from mixing dextrose or anything else into the pharmacy cream. Maybe after the first batch of the cream I'll ask the pharmacy and my doctor about adding dextrose. I was also thinking of asking about magnesium which I believe I have seen added to this formulation on some pharmacy sites. I have separate Epsom-It cream, but I'm hesitant to use it on the same area because of the possibility of messing up the base that transfers the drugs through the skin. Or maybe I can just use the Epsom It cream above and below the area? Are there any other topical ingredients you'd recommend asking about for the cream that may help in nerve healing? Thanks!

You only need to use the Epsom-It once a day or so. You can stagger application, because the RX compounded cream would be absorbed within an hour I would think.

And yes, some places put magnesium into the creams as well. But I don't know the concentration. Magnesium oxide for example may not work at all. I suspect they would use magnesium sulfate.

But staggering it is okay, at different times of the day.

This is what is in Prologel:

http://www.amazon.com/ProloGel-Arthr.../dp/B00BJ9CJM8

Go down to the bottom of this page...where it explains that ultrasound is needed to penetrate the dextrose product:
http://prologel.com/research/

I tried a number of those creams, ointments that "claim" cure for PN during the early parts of my symptoms but they are just that --- claim and nothing in it.

I am curious though about your compounded cream, does it help you? A friend of mine gave me some of her compounded pain cream that consists of Lidocaine, Ibuprofen and klonidine (sp.). I dont use it often because of the Klonidine component. It lowers blood pressure and I dont have problem with BP.

Mary