Originally Posted by fmichael

I agree with the comments that have been posted here: Neurontin helps some people more than others and, more importantly, helps in some ways more than others. Does anyone else experience the "wind-up" sensations that I addressed in the initial posting?

mrsD, as for as the value of NDMA antagonists, I too have posted a lot on that over the years. I'm currently on 30 mg. of Memantine a day in an attempt to slow down the loss of grey matter in the brain that is incident to chronic pain, and it has done nothing for my CRPS, despite at least one published case report showing that six patients with CRPS had statistically significant results in pain reduction from the same dose of Memantine. See, "Memantine Treatment of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: A Preliminary Report of Six Cases," Nektarios Sinis at al, Clin J Pain, 2007, Vol. 23, No. 3, March/April 07 237-243, a copy of which is attached. But I wasn't surprised, having been personally advised by a top CRPS researcher in 2003 that doses of Memantine that people were talking about were too low to make a difference in cases of CRPS, and that ketamine was where the action was. Unfortunately, due to a pre-existing history of glaucoma, I was disqualified from the high dose German ketamine trials later that year, with airline tickets already in hand.

However, even the high dose ketamine trials could report only generally favorable but mixed reports on improvement in quality of life six months out, while the same authors' study of "low dose" ketamine infusions (increasing over 10 days to 500 mg/day) showed no significant benefit in terms of pain relief even at the end of the 10 day infusions. Compare, "Efficacy of Ketamine in Anesthetic Dosage for the Treatment of Refractory Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: An Open-Label Phase II Study," Kiefer RT, Rohr P, Ploppa A, et al, Pain Med., 2008 Feb 5, free full text at http://www.rsds.org/2/library/articl...a_Dietrich.pdf, with, "A Pilot Open-Label Study of the Efficacy of Subanesthetic Isometric S(+)-Ketamine in Refractory CRPS Patients," Kiefer RT, Rohr P, Ploppa A, et al, Pain Med. 2008; 9(1):44-54, free full text at http://www.rsds.org/2/library/articl...ohr_Ploppa.pdf. And I suppose that knowing I couldn't get into a high dose ketamine treatment was what sent me off in search of RUL ECT as a treatment for CRPS, only to later discover find out that due to decades old restrictions, it was illegal in California, outside an IRB supervised clinical trial. (For anyone interested in my efforts in that regard, check out the thread at http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread42529.html Unfortunately, the link to my review article on the JPPM site is no longer active, but it's available on the RSDSA server at http://www.rsds.org/2/library/articl...haels_CRPS.pdf)

All that said, I greatly appreciate the information concerning diet and NDMA. Thank you!

Mike

Originally Posted by mrsD

One can work with NMDA receptors. Magnesium is useful for this and also is a good vasodilator.

Here is a wiki article that lists drugs that work as antagonists:

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

Avoidance of MSG (monosodium glutamate) may help and avoidance of aspartic acid (in nutrasweet and some supplements) may help too. These two amino acids stimulate the NMDA receptors. MSG is in many processed foods, especially soups and snacks, gravies, etc. Restaurants use it heavily.
Q-doba mexican really pours it on....I can't eat there. Some new soups are on the market as NO MSG...and the difference is striking to the body! I have met people who eat MSG containing foods 3 or more times a day! We are just not designed to handle a flood of non protein bound glutamate this way. We were designed to consume glutamate that is normally in foods which is slowly cleaved off the carriers as needed.

MSG and NMDA receptor stimulation is a very common trigger for peripheral neuropathy. I've posted many many times on this subject over there. I am finding many similarities to PN while reading here. We have several posters with full body burning, for example.