My Saying hello post:

(Won't let me post it, as I have less then 10 posts. Just look in New Member Introductions for post: Hi. Just 7 days in. Life going down hill. Help. I"ll update this post with a real link when it lets me.

I'm pretty certain I have neuropathy. Have no idea what kind or why though. I feel taking vitamins can't hurt though.

I want to attack this head on! I really do. I'm desperate to do so.

Vitamin list: Please help me build a killer vitamin list so that I can get them shipped to me post haste! :-)

Every says take b12 methylcobalamin. Has anyone tried the patch or cream?

What do people think of this guys list?

Wing42:
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Take supplements at the start of meals to protect the esophagus, except where the bottle recommends taking without food.

Name
Dose Per
Rationale / Comments
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Vit B12
1,000 - 6,000 mcg day
Boosts nerve function. Is required for and dramatically speeds nerve healing. Compensates for possible deficiency. Use sublingual methylcobalamin if available, or 1,000 mcg of cyanocobalamin if not. Take IN ADDITION TO the B-complex. Up to 36,000 mcg/day injected are prescribed in Japan for PN.
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B-complex
B-50 1/day
Needed for energy, nerve function, nerve healing. A B-50 formulation is about twice as strong as a regular B-complex. Two B-50s or one B-100 is at the upper safety limit. Take with breakfast so it help your body utilize your food all day.
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Folate or folic acid
Up to 1200 mcg. 1/day
An important component in nerve function, shown to be deficient in many cases of neuropathy. Helps fight depression and bipolar disorder. Check the folate level in your B-50, and supplement with enough to bring your folate intake to 800 - 1200 mcg/day. Men with neuropathy need more than women. If it doesn’t help within about six weeks, the amount in your B-50 should be sufficient.
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Vit C
250 mg./day. The latest research is that this is all we can use. Not needed if you eat a good diet since almost all fruit and veggies have vitamin C. Antioxidant, heals nerves.
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Vit E mixed tocopherals.
400 iu /day
Antioxidant, heals nerves. More than 400 iu of cheap sythesized l-alpha-tecopheral can cause heart problems. Formulations with plenty of gamma-tocopherals and are heart and nerve healthy. Is a blood thinner. Ask your doctor if you take prescription blood thinners.
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Acetyl-L-Carnatine
500 mg. 2/day
Heals nerves, reduces pain, improves memory, elevates mood and increases energy. Works with Alpha lipoic acid. 3,000 mg./day heals nerves and reduces pain over a year's use in several studies. That would be very costly, but worthwhile if you can afford it.

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Alpha Lipoic Acid
800 mg. day
Antioxident. 800 mg./day is prescribed in Europe for PN. Help all tissue repair and nerve function. The only antioxidant that gets into neurons because it is both fat and water soluble. Works with the Acetyl-L-Carnatine
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SAMe
400 - 1200 mg 1/day on an empty stomach
Methyl donor. Potent antioxidant. Help vitamins and enzyme systems work. Fights depression, aids sleep, anti-arthritic. Helps liver detoxification. Ask your doctor if you have bipolar disorder because it can increase manic phase symptoms. Expensive, so start with 1200 mg/day, then taper to 400 or 800 mg. after two weeks.
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Calcium/Magnesium
500 mg. Magnesium 2/day
Nerve and muscle function, bone strength. Magnesium helps stop twitches, cramps, and fascilations, reduces pain, lowers blood pressure, and prevents heart disease. Take a formulation of easily absorbed acid salts or chelates. Potassium, calcium, and magnesium are all required for muscle and nerve function. Potassium is in most fruit and vegetables. Too much Ca/Mg can cause kidney stones. The proper ration is two parts of elemental calcium to one of magnesium. A caution: magnesium citrate is a potent laxative. If you start supplementing with magnesium and get the runs, try another formulation or cut down the amount.
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Fish Oil
1000 mg 2-3/day
Antioxidant. Promote joint health, circulatory system health. Anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic. Omega 3 fatty acids. Specific for neuropathy. Lower blood pressure. Moisturizes skin and makes hair shiny. Is a blood thinner. Ask your doctor if you take prescription blood thinners.
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Flax seed
2 tbsp. day
Omega 3 fatty acids. Helps your digestion, blood circulation, general nerve and muscle function. Flax seed has lignins which provides cancer protection.
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Milk thistle
200 mg-70% 3/day
Stimulate and promote liver detoxification. Use only if needed: if the liver is sore or if you were exposed to toxins or drugs.
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PB-8 or other probiotic formula.
1 or 2/day
Probiotics-ensure good amount and healthy balance of intestinal bacteria. Healthy intestinal bacteria produce many nerve essential compounds. Live culture yogurt is a probiotic that has the same beneficial effect, if you can handle the small amount of milk sugar in it.
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Coenzyme Q-10
50 mg, 2/day. Necessary for muscle and nerve function. Compensate for depletion caused by some drugs such as statins.
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DHEA
50 mg. in morning on empty stomach
Promotes healing, energy, libido. Most people over 50 need to supplement with DHEA. Recommended by Life Extension Foundation for peripheral neuropathy.

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Where to buy? I normally shop at Puritan Pride. Where would you all recommend? Amazon?

I really need all of my vitamins to be gel caps or something easy to swallow. No dry tablets please.

If something you recommend is pricey, please tell me anyway on what it is, and where to get it, but if you can also list an alternative, then please do so as well. Maybe after taking the pricey one to get started, i can think about the less pricey one down the road if all is going well.

I'm going to be reading a ton of back posts on this site on everything, and have been for hours now, but I really need to get going on this. My symptoms are spreading by the hour.

Thanks. :-)

It is really best to start slowly.... Using all the listed supplements in the beginning does not help you target what is going on with you and identify your trigger.

I see from your latest posts that you work out alot. That is stressful. You also eat processed fast food, and consume alot of bananas. (sugar).

Your onset is recent, and can be due to a virus perhaps. Your diet may contribute as well, by having lots of sugars and carbs and fast food in it.

People who work out alot should pay attention to magnesium, which can get low. Many people just have low levels due to poor diet anyway.

So using a good magnesium supplement, like SlowMag twice a day or magnesium glycinate or citrate may help. Avoid oxide form.

If you are vegan or use alot of antacid drugs like Zantac and Prilosec OTC, then starting with B12 methylcobalamin may help.
But it is best to get this tested before you start. A doctor's order is needed for this, and get your results in numbers. 400pg/ml is the new low cut off for this.

If you don't eat well, using an Omega-3 supplement like fish oil may help. But I would not use all the supplements you listed yet. You may not even need them.

Try to remain calm...the magnesium can help for that. Excess stress and anxiety tends to alter the acid/base ratios in the blood, and cause more paresthesias.

So start slowly, relax, and avoid fast food. Fast food and restaurant foods, have lots of MSG (monosodium glutamate) in them, and that alone can trigger paresthesias.

Hi, I take MOST on the above list, but my most favorite is grape seed extract and I'm in my 21st year with it. I talk about it so much.

Magnesium is important, SamE did not help me. I take 1K to 3K Vit C with rose hips daily.

I have been taking Milk Thistle for many years and would not be without it.

I take 30Billion IUF's probiotics daily - Healthy Origins.

COQ10 I just upped to 100mg morning and one later in evening.

Fish Oil from Jarrow EPA/DHA balance product. I don't use flax seed but know many do.

DHEA 25mg for many years and check labs periodically.

I would add most important ones, the B's and add others along the way. I've been using supplements over 25 yrs and I keep adding new ones, eliminating ones that I don't feel help.

I shop for good quality and best price but know amazon carries everything.

I'm sure you'll hear from others.

What foods have no sugar. My mother is on her way, but won't be here until Saturday. They need to be more or less simple to make. Super simple. Any help would be great. Links to some long term food ideas would be great too.

Right now I'm eating a can of white crab meat. It's all I could find. It only has 90 calories though. I"m only eating the bananas because I'm not really eating right now. I have no appetite, but I know I need to eat something with this Tramadol

Is sugar substitutes bad for what I have?

Thanks.

No sugar= no sugared sodas, cookies, sugared cereals, cakes, pies, donuts, etc.

Eating carefully is lean meats, seafood, chicken, salmon, eggs, (hardboiled eggs are easy).
veggies, greens (salads). Some fruit in moderation. (Bananas will make sugar as they brown up. So eating them overripe will have more sugar than when they are yellow).

You can buy pouches of Chicken of the Sea salmon...they are very convenient and a good source of protein and omega-3's.

You are 40 yrs old now and entering middle age. Your body is not the same as when you were 20. How it metabolizes food, has changed, and you need to change how you eat.

If you eat soups, read the labels unless you make your own.
MSG in processed foods stimulates the NMDA pain receptors, so people with nerve pain will feel worse when consuming that.
There are snacks now that are quite free of MSG... Lays makes a Corn Tostito, and potato chip with no MSG, now. (try to eat these in moderation however, as they are carbs and metabolize to sugar).

Hi RyanK

I agree with what mrsD has suggested about healthy eating. My diet follows her suggestions, I don't have neuropathy and don't eat supplements.

One thing which you could consider adding to her suggestions a daily handful (about 30 grams) of unsalted nuts.

I eat a daily handful of a mixture of almonds, cashews and pistachios. Collectively they are good sources of protein, minerals, healthy fats, dietary fibre and some vitamins.

Great ideas so far on food! Can I use some real cream butter or olive oil on that meat when cooking it for flavor?

I'd love to hear some ideas on vitamins though as well. :-) I was thinking about buying a b12 spray on Amazon:

Vita Sciences Vitamin B12 Methylcobalamin Cream Skin Health - Maxasorb -1.7 FlOz

Or maybe these drops?:

Vitamin B12 Sublingual Liquid Drops, Vegan, 3000mcg Methylcobalamin, 60 servings, Superior Absorption Over Pills, Capsules, Soft Gels, and Patches, Boost Your Energy.

What do people think of Puritan Pride for vitamins? Do any of you have a favorite site for vitamins?

Hi RyanK

As far as Vitamin B12 is concerned, mrsD knows a lot about this - she will be able to advise you.

More generally, and this is just my opinion, provided that somebody eats in a healthy way (along the lines that mrsD has suggested) and does not have any medical problems (a full clinical investigation from your GP can help here, possibly with help from a professional dietitian) their nutritional needs (including vitamins) can usually be met from their food so there is no need to eat supplements.

There are nerves in the tendons, which serve the brain to tell it where you are moving, and how fast, etc.

There are 4 types of sensory nerves in the periphery:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/cv.html

This is why sprains hurt so much and take so long to heal.
If you pull your tendons too hard, pain will result to warn you.

PN can come from a viral infection. And some food poisonings can cause it. A certain type from infected fish:
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/wilde...article_em.htm

Also from poorly cooked chicken= camplyobacter bacteria cause nerve damage.

Histamine excess from histamine foods, or histamine releasing foods:
http://www.histamineintolerance.org....the-food-list/

The histamine symptoms are paresthesias, and difficult to distinguish from real nerve damage (neuropathy).

MSG is also a huge trigger... just eliminating it can give quite a bit of relief. MSG is in almost all processed and restaurant prepared food.

And so you may have more than one event clustering on you at this time to give a rapid response. Sweats like you describe often happen when a person has inflammation or an infection of some type and takes an NSAID like ibuprofen or Aleve. Sweats also come when your blood sugar falls to low levels.

If you decide to use B12, take it on an empty stomach. It stays in your saliva which you swallow and is absorbed in the terminal ilium (intestine)...very little if any is
absorbed in the mouth. If you get tested, you have to stop the B12 several days before the test, because the test will show a false elevation and be rather useless.

Ryan, I've been at this a long time and I eat very well BUT still feel my supplements fill in where all the foods don't do it... I've followed the Weston Price Foundation healthy traditions way of eating for years. They know so much about oils and from that group I learned so much about coconut oil which I use daily for cooking and making my own toothpaste to eating it off the spoon. I buy real unsalted butter too.

I never bought into the designer foods in today's food industry. non fat, low fat etc etc..

With advancing age, I work to keep sugars/carbs and sodium to an acceptable level. Our body needs salts but there is a difference from sodium and salt. I use sea salts.

Processed foods are so OVER sugared and sodiumized. I read labels and go for low sodium when I buy processed...also shop at our coop market and whole foods...

http://www.westonaprice.org/

Good wishes and you are getting a lot of healthy education from the members here.