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Neuropathy
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DeadNerves
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I have had diabetic neuropathy for over 10 years now. This has been confirmed by nerve conduction test by my neurologist twice with a year between the tests. My neurologist does not like to run these tests as he feels they are very painful, but I tolerate them since the feeling of being electrically shocked is minor compared to what I have experienced with my neuropathy. What really surprised my neurologist was that my second test was better than the first, which “should not be possible, because nerves don’t regenerate.” For a long time I took 2 perspiration’s, 3,600mg of Neurontin and 25mg of Amatriptoline per day. Then I found out that the manufacturer of Neurontin was sued by the government for $470-million, because they were promoting the use of the drug for things that the FDA had not approved, with one of those being the treatment of neuropathy. At that point I fired my old neurologist for prescribing it and found my current neurologist. Now my prescription has changed to 75mg of Amatriptoline per day by it self. This helps reduce the symptoms, but does nothing to cure the problem. There are also some other medications, which I have heard can help, such as Oxycotin, Topamax and Duloxetine. My neurologist, however, still prefers Amatriptoline, because it has a long successful track record, with negligible side effects and is available as a generic for about $7 per month. In addition to Amatriptoline I take 100mg vitamin B-Complex plus a good vitamin-mineral supplement and omaga-3 fatty acids each day. A good friend of mine is a naturopathic doctor who earned his Naturopathic Doctor degree by graduating from Bastyr University in Washington. He is a very smart guy who comes from a long line of naturopaths dating back to the famous doctor and author Avicienna a thousand years ago. My friend is the one that recommended the B-Complex combined with the other supplements. He actually recommended 75mg of vitamin B-Complex, but what I can buy is 100mg, so what is not needed is lost each day as it is water soluble and not stored in the body. My neurologist is very interested that a largish dose of B-Complex could actually improve my neuropathy. He very carefully checked over the nerve conduction test setup each time and is convinced that indeed my condition has improved as my friend the naturopath said it would. Several doctors have been surprised that I still have feeling in my feet after over 10 years of having this decease. Please note that all vitamins and other supplements are not created equal. Some producers are much more reliable than others with lab tests proving that the commonly available ones do not contain the levels stated on their labels. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you check with a graduate naturopathic doctor for your proper dosage and for reliable sources. Also be warned to avoid those who say they are “naturopathic doctors,” but got their “degree” through a correspondence course rather than from an accredited collage. Recently I have learned that the Canadian National Health Service recommends Evening Primrose Oil for all people with diabetic neuropathy. I have not yet tried Evening Primrose Oil, but I intend to start this week. The recommended dosage is 1,000mg to 1,500mg, with 1,300mg being the mean. The Canadians state that some people begin to notice a benefit within a few months, but that most see an improvement within a year. I have also, learned that there have been successes in neuropathy reversal using a combination of low level near infrared and red light in a therapy program. The treatment involves the use of a “boot” or pad, which is lined with light emitting diodes (LEDs), connected to a controller. It is my understanding that the FDA approves the equipment, but that you only have a 20% chance that your medical insurance carrier will help with the cost at this point in time. You can search for information on the Internet with http://www.ledresearch.net/ (LED Research) being a good starting point as it has links to both research documents and 4 manufacturers of equipment. Bell + Howell also makes a low cost version, but they do not recommend their equipment for neuropathy treatment. In some areas therapists, nursing homes and hospitals have the equipment and provide 3 day per week treatments for about $15 to $18 per week. Where there are no treatment centers yet one has the option to buy the equipment for use at home. I am currently searching for therapy provider in my area and investigating buying the equipment as well. As those who have neuropathy know it is no fun. Most people, including those in the medical profession, do not realize how painful neuropathy can be. Over the years my condition is both improving and changing. I have also found that doctors tend not to tell me much about where I am headed with this decease down the road. As time passes there are more-and-more side effects which effect more and more parts of the body. For example, in my case there are nerves on the front edge on my pelvis which have become more sensitized with time. This has resulted in, what my neurologist describes as “football shaped areas” on the front outside portion of my thighs feeling cold, numb and painful when I sit for very long. Also I have developed 2 hearing problems. I have moderate hearing loss in the higher frequencies and a near constant “ringing” in my ears that sounds like Cicadas wooing each other in the trees outside. Another side effect is that I am no longer sensitive to my blood sugar level dropping. It used to be that I knew right away when my glucose level dropped below 70mg/dL, because it effected my central vision. In the last few months there have been times when my blood sugar has dropped below 50mg/dL alarmingly often and twice when it got down to 37 and 38mg/dL before I sensed anything was wrong. The strangest change, and one that my doctors have not identified yet is that sometimes 2-hours after I finally fall asleep I am awakened by a terrible burning sensation all over my body except for my torso. Why 2-hours we do not know, but it is always the same length of time before it happens. If I stay in bed the burning increases, but if I get up and walk around it fades away within about 30-minutes. Because of the progressive nature of neuropathy I am trying to find all the means possible to slow or reverse the condition. If I do not succeed then I have the inability to walk and the loss of bowel functions, as examples, to look forward to. I used to tolerate the symptoms of neuropathy and figured it was good training in case I am ever captured and tortured.  There have been times when I felt I could not take much more and nearly decided to give up the fight, but since that is not permitted I never have.
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Complete Thread For This Topic (Message Tree)
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1. RE: Neuropathy
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Bob
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This message was edited on Jun-20-05 at 10:06 PM (EST)
Besides evening primrose oil, you may wish to do some resaerch on alpha lipoic acid. ALA is prescribed in Germany for neuropathy treatment. I take 400 mg twice a day, with 1000 mg EPO each time. I believe this has reversed the minor neuropathy I had. Do a Google search on "alpha lipoic acid +neuropathy" for more information. Positive results are reported from many sources, including the Mayo Clinic, the University of Maryland Medical Center and the German Diabetes Research Institute, University of Düsseldorf, Germany.Borage oil is another source of the active ingredient in EPO, gamma linoic acid. I believe that for me, borage oil was more efficacious. The combination of ALA and GLA is theoretically a way to actually reverse neuropathy, though most US physicians will deny that this is possible. It may take months before you notice any improvement, but I am certain it helps me. ALA possibly has the added advantage of lowering the percentage of glycosated hemoglobin, though this is not widely known. Do a Google search on "Alpha lipoic acid +HBA1C" for more information.
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2. RE: Neuropathy
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DeadNerves
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Thank you for the input. I am also looking into lecithin and anything else that might help. Any ideas are welcome. The reason I posted my earlier message is because my neuropathy woke me up and I got to thinking about all the other sufferers out there and the fact that I had been advised to do the whole B-Complex thing and that had been proven to work by a reliable test, so I sat right down and wrote to all those that would read it. I hope it helps some of you. I believe that we all need to stick together and help each other as much as we can. So far the only doctor I have found that truly understands what I am going through is my audiologist and that is because his test results and my test results look like we are twins. But that is another story about what side effects diabetes can give us, so I will leave it for another time.
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3. RE: Neuropathy
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bonnynemia
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I have always been for natural means of controlling my type 2 diabetes. At the rate I am doing, I strongly believe that I will never never resort to oral meds and/or insulin. I have this funny, unconventional, and unexplainable feeling that oral meds and/or insulin will not do better than my diet-and-exercise control method.For short periods of time during all the 14 years that I have been a type 2 diabetic, I tried ALA, chromium picolinate, green tea, cinnamon, gingko biloba, and other supplements. I found them to have beneficial effects on me, but on my own, I decided to totally avoid them for fear of developing dependence on them. I figured that as long as heart-healthy foods and exercise are fully effective in my type 2 diabetes control, I will not add anything to my anti-diabetes weapons.
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4. RE: Neuropathy
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DeadNerves
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I wish you luck. For years I did my best to keep control with diet and exercise, but the degree of control that I could achieve was not good enough, that is I was not within the 80 to 120mg/dL range. The first "side effect" was a series of 3 heart attacks, but I persisted in trying to achieve control with diet and exercise. Over the period of 25 years my poor old pancreas got weaker until I finally could not even come close to good control by diet and exercise.I have 3 good friends that are naturopathic doctors. They all graduated from a fully accredited collage with the degree of Naturopathic Doctor. They were each trained as well as any Medical Doctor is. They are very much in favor of achieving control through diet and exercise as was I, but as the decease ran its course it became clear that I could not do it without some help. I tried herbs and supplements and at first they helped and they still do to a degree, but they became less effective with time. So that my body would not start to depend on the herbs and supplements and not adapt to their presence and make them less effective I followed a routine of so many days on and so many days off. I would pass this information on, but I am told it is different for every one. However, I will pass on a general principal. Herbs and supplements always work better in combination that they do on their own. This has been demonstrated repeatedly and is a cornerstone of naturopathic medicine. The first attempts at the "hard stuff" came after it was clear that I needed more help than the herbs, supplements, diet and exercise could provide. When I started using medicine it was oral medications. With this medical help my blood sugars fell into line, but after a few years they to began to be less effective then I needed even though I still did my best with diet and exercise. To put it simply, my pancreas was wearing out. It was over worked and I could no longer produce enough insulin to turn the key to let the glucose into my cells. One of the medicines prescribed for me was Resolin (sp?). After a year of that I heard that it was being recalled and in looking into it I found that both the FDA and the drugs manufacturer required that initial liver tests be run and that they be repeated (as I remember) on a monthly bases. My doctor at the time ordered none of these tests, so I concluded that he didn't know what he was doing and that in fact he was dangerous. I probably should have sued, but what I did was to find a new more responsible doctor. The first thing he did was to take me off of Resulin. That medicine is probably what started my lever problems that flared up recently, but trying to prove that would cost too much. A point finally arrived when with all the means at my disposal my blood sugar level would jump up over 450 mg/dL after eating. A1C tests were above 10 and by then I had developed a new side effect, neuropathy. This lead to a whole new battery of tests from which it was clear that my pancreas could no longer do the job even with all the help I could give it. I understand from the diabetes specialist that if type 2 diabetics live long enough they will eventually all become insulin dependent at some point. I was very reluctant to start injecting insulin, but my doctor, specialists and my 3 naturopath friends all agreed - for me there was no longer any way to avoid the enviable. So now I take insulin and it allows me to stay in control the majority of the time with my blood sugar ranging between 80 and 230 mg/dL most of the time. The method that I opted for is "carbohydrate counting" This allows me to inject the right amount of insulin just before I eat calculated to match the carbohydrates I figure are in each meal. At first it took some getting used to, but over time it has become quite easy to determine the right amount. So now I do pretty well. When I catch a cold I go up over 300 mg/dL and sometimes when we go out to eat I guess wrong and there are times when I experience more physical exertion that I expect. For example, when we moved recently and my blood sugar drop way down. However, these occurrences are not common and so my A1C tests have run between 4.8 and 6.0 for 2 years now. It is not the perfect solution and while I recommend it for improved control I will admit at the same time that injections and blood testing are not my favorite activities. There may be a solution on the horizon that will help diabetics achieve better control. However, continued stem-cell research will have to wait until the United States has a new president. In the mean time perhaps researchers in Canada, Japan, Germany or somewhere else may find a solution. After this happens we probably will get the benefits from stem-cell research. It is my understanding that a person's stem-cells could be harvested from the placenta and umbilical cord at birth and kept frozen until that person deeds some them latter in life to cure decease. It is also my understanding that stem-cells can also be harvested even from a mature person that needs them, so they can have them when they need them in latter life. An example of this was a man who would have otherwise died from a heart attack, but they saved his life by harvesting stem-cells from him and injecting them into his heart muscle. Unlike heart transplants the man was fully recovered within a relatively short time. As you probably know, if you are reading this, there are millions of people who have damaged pancreases either as a birth defect or because they have been a type 2 diabetic so long that their pancreas is worn out from being over worked trying to produce enough insulin to get needed glucose into their cells. Can stem-cells injected into the pancreas reverse the damage? For now we will have to wait to find out. The above is my combined understanding from several doctors and my own study of the subjects. I pass it along in the hope that something might help someone. I am not a doctor. I am a retired engineer and long term director of research and development specializing mainly in electro-optic transducers and piezoelectric devices. If you have questions you would do well to do your own research and find a competent doctor. In my own case I wasted a lot of time going to general practitioners. There may be some GPs that know about diabetes, but I found that the majority do not have the specialized knowledge needed to treat the decease successfully. All of my friends that are doctors agree that people become diseased either because of something they did to themselves or something that someone else did to them. Diabetes is a fairly unique disease, because we can’t fight it. What we really need to do is fight ourselves. We are both the cause and the victim. Somewhere in life we learned to eat the wrong things cooked in the wrong way. We got ourselves into this mess and we need to find ways to help ourselves so that we don’t get any worse. I know that is hard. Changing a lifelong dietary pattern is one of the hardest things there is to do. I know I fight myself all the time. Please help yourselves, help each other and find those that can assist you the best. I wish all of you success in your search for solutions to your problems.
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5. RE: Neuropathy
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bonnynemia
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Thank you very much for all the information you have been sharing with us. I find them to be very important and useful.May I know how long you were on diet-and-exercise control before you had your first heart attack? I have been on it for 14 years now and I have been getting this confidence that it will be effective for me for as long as I live. I say this because my exercise is getting easier to do every day. Another good thing that works in my favor is that I don't get scared of high postmeal blood sugar levels. As long as my A1c's are in the normal range, I don't worry a bit about short-lived postprandial bs highs. Sweet fruits are my favorite foods and I eat a lot of them. What foods have I been avoiding? Not many of them. I don't eat dairy products and most bakery products. I totally avoid anything with artificial sweeteners and I limit my intake of pork and beef and anything with their fats.
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6. RE: Neuropathy
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DeadNerves
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I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1981. I believe that I may have been a diabetic earlier, but no doctor picked up on it. My 3 heart attacks were close together and occurred near the end of 1990. At that point my wife and I got more serious about diet and became vegetarians. We are not Vegan or Fruititarians, because we feel that is going too far and is too limiting in the verity of nutrients those diets provide. We are fortunate to have a very good well-established natural/organic food store in town. I do my best to avoid all simple carbohydrates, animal fats and transfats. The only meat I eat is fish from the arctic and then only if they will guarantee me that it is not laced with pollutants. I eat no dairy produces of any kind. I eat nothing that has been fried or baked at a high temperature as they also form transfats. I eat no ¡§puffed¡¨ foods as that process also creates transfats. (Years ago I met the man that invented the puffed food process. He told me, in the beginning they tried every thing and that ¡§the absolute worst was puffed pickles!¡¨) My wife and I were moving in the direction of vegetarianism for 20 years before my heart attacks, but it took that wakeup call to make us really dedicated. So, how long was I using diet and exercise to control my glucose levels? I think that a reasonable number would be about 30 years to a greater and lesser degree. However, not knowing that I was officially a diabetic until 24 years ago, or 9 years before my heart attacks meant that it was more for philosophical reasons that for health. I will confess to you that my exercise program has never been very good. That is not to say that I am a couch potato, because I am quite active, but I also have had arthritis in my hips, lower back and neck for about 44 years. Exercise is good for the arthritis as well as the diabetes, but the arthritis makes it painful and, therefore, limiting. I spent many months with a physical therapist a couple of years ago, but they felt that the degree of my arthritis precluded the use of any of the exercise machines, so my therapy all took place in a heated pool. It helped my range of motion and I have maintained that since, but it never decreased the pain. After the therapy, I was granted a permanent disability parking tag, because I am in pain before I have walked 100 feet. For exercise I was walking at least a mile a day and that does decrease my glucose level. As I wrote, my arthritis is in my hips, lower back and neck, but that is where it started. Now it is also in my shoulders, hands and feet and is gradually spreading. On top of that my heart attacks left me with about 1/4th of my heart muscle dead. Have you got a good source of stem-cells that you could let me in on? ƒº Everybody is different in millions of ways. It may be that diet and exercize are all you will ever need. I hope that this is true. The more contienchous you are about it the better it will work for you. I think that you should be aware that not every thing that diabeties does shows up on an A1C test. Diabeties messes up one whole body chemistry. It puts an abnormal strain of every organ of one¡¦s body. Keeping your A1C at 6.0 or below puts it into the normal range, but that does not mean that all risks drop to zero. It reminds me of the internationally known runner that droped dead of a heart attack when he was in his prime. (Sorry I can¡¦t put his name out at the moment.) Certenly, a good diet and exercize program reduces risks, being a vegetarian reduces the risks even further. I have never seen any sttistics on the risks form chemically grown food and I immagin that is because the mega food companies don¡¦t want anybody to know. I have seen studies that show that organically grown foods provide atleast 4 times the nutriants that artifisially grown foods do. I have read that if fruits and vegeatibles are grown rather that cows, pigs, sheep, rabbits, etc. that 20 times as many people can be fed from the same acerage. People become vegetarians for different reasons. My neace is a vegetarian, because she is deeply concerned about the effect that slughtering animals all day has on the people that do that work. My wife and I originally move toward a vegetarian diet, because we didn¡¦t want to eat a ¡§Big Mac¡¨ and therby cause someone else somewhere to starve. The Rain Forests are disapearing to make grasing land for cattle. This is incredably wastful, not only because those trees used to help filter the air we brieth, but also because the land that used to support the Rain Forest make losy land to grow grass on and in a mater of just a few years it won¡¦t support the growing of grass any more. Fortunetly, for agrabusiness they have a sollution. All they have to do is burn and knock down another rain forest. Clearly, a wonderfull sollution and it allows Americans and Europeans to keep consuming meat. It is also excelleant for the medical busineses, because 67% of all deaths are diet related. I am a diabetic because of the diet I used to eat years ago. I had 3 heart attacks and 5 by passes, because I became a diabetic and because of the diet I used to eat. I have arthritis, because of the diet I used to eat. I very nearly lost the sight in my left eye, because of the diet I used to eat and, because I became a diabetic. I know quite a few doctors, both medical and naturopathic, well enough that I can ask them anything and they will tell me the truth. One of those things is that deceses come from 2 primary causes. What we do to ourselves and what others do to us. Both of these causes, however, are within our power to control. Therefore, the fact that I am a diabetic is my own doing. While it is true that my grandmother fried meat for every meal in leftover bacon fat. It is also true that my mother¡¦s idea of a really good meal was a big helping of Chocholet Moose and a chocholet milkshake. When I was a kid my parents visited the dairy and the farms where the cows were to be sure that they were Guernsey cows, because they produce the most butter fat and of cource we only got whole milk. Skip delivered it fresh every day with a hourse and waggon. The only exception was if there was a nearby fire, because Skip was also a volintier fireman and the one that drove the firetruck. The amino-acids in that milk are probably where the initial damage to my pancreas came from. So, can I blame my grandparants, my parants and the dairy for my health problems. I don¡¦t believe so. The schools I attended all had libaries, the town had a library, the nearest city had a world class library, the University of Rochester, which includes one of the great medical schools, has a great library, etc. I had ample opertunity to study and learn what I needed to do to to keep and make myself as healthy as possible. I didn¡¦t do that and now I am paying for my errors. I have no one to blame, but my self. I hope that you are younger and smarter than I was and that you will seek out what you need to know and inlist the assistance of knowlegable people, so that you can avoid the pitfalls that brough me down to the state I am in. I wish everybody well!
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7. RE: Neuropathy
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bonnynemia
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Thank you very much for all your help in telling me what I should know about your life with type 2 diabetes. The information I got from you is not something I will ever get from others, like medical doctors, experts on diabetes, and other diabetics.I am not here to say that I am doing better than you are or will do better than you do. The big difference between us is that you have arthritis to contend with. If I had arthritis, I doubt very much that I would be as healthy as I am now. For my exercise, I run the stairs four times a day, 11 minutes per session, before each of my 3 full meals (no snacks) and before bed. I was diagnosed in July 1991, and since that time, I have been very diligent in doing my exercise routine. I am now 69 1/2 years old, and very proud to say that I feel like I am much younger than my actual age. My food intake is limited to heart-healthy foods, mostly fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains, nuts, beans, seafoods, skinless chicken, lean beef and pork. I always try my best to learn from other type 2 diabetics who control their diabetes thru diet and exercise and from medical doctors and diabetes experts who believe in alternative medicine and the use of supplements and herbs. I do a lot of experiments regarding the use of foods combined with exercise, using my own body as the guinea pig. The conclusions I reach are just for my own use but I love comparing them to the results others get. That's the reason for all the questions I ask others about their experiences with their type 2 diabetes. Will you kindly email me your mailing address because I would like to send you a complimentary copy of the book my co-author, Ms. Jayne Boykin, and I wrote on type 2 diabetes. I would like to share with as many type 2 diabetics as I can possibly reach my effective way of controlling my disease. I don't mean to encourage them to change their desired way of diabetes control. I just would like to let the word out that my way works wonderfully for me and may help them too to attain better healthy for themselves. The amazing thing about diet-and-exercise control is that it is always effective for the people I know who have been using it for a number of years. And practically all of them decided on their own to be on this control method. Very few medical doctors prescribe diet and exercise, and this can easily be reason that it is not a popular way of controlling type 2 diabetes. Thanks again for all the important and useful information you have been sharing with me. Bonny C Damocles
email address: bonnynemia@yahoo.com
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12. RE: Neuropathy
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help me please
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Tim has the worst kind of diabeties....taking 25 units of lantis a day ..he has neurop in his throat and vomits most all he eats..has a BM once a week...what is ahead in the future that we have to face, what can be done to stop it before his bowels stop......he is on disability but no med coverage for another year from medicade, he's running out of time and he is accepting and prepairing to die... we have no hpe but God... Please oh please what can i do, where can i find medical help and treatment...I am crying as i am writing... i love him so much, i have cutting and debriding away the rotten flesh from a 2 inch deep sore on his heal, the bone was exposed, but i finally got healthy tissue to cover it..but it keeps spreading up to his ankle.....I am begging for some miracle..please help me
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help me please,
sheila
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15. RE: Neuropathy
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furball64801
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Yes that good old neuropathy. I have had it for about 15yrs. It is really bad at night when I try and sleep. I have tried most all treatments even those listed here. One day something will help how many here have heard of anodyne treatment. I can't get it but it shows great promise.
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Dude
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8. RE: Neuropathy
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DRBain
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Deadnerves,I too have neuropathy and am taking Neurontin. In a search of the web I found that the FDA has approved Cymbalta (duloxetine hydrochloride) capsules for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Although I haven't had any problems with Neurontin, I don't think it is managing the pain all that well. I am going to discuss this with my doctor on my next appointment. I hope this helps.
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Dan
"I used to cry because I had no shoes until I met the man that had no feet"
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9. RE: Neuropathy
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DeadNerves
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Neurontin was never very effective for me. It is also a very expensive drug. Also it has never been approved for neuropathy. Doctors are using it as an "off label" drug which was promoted by the manufacture for non-approved uses. This is why they lost the court case and ended up paying the court $470-million for their illegal promotion of the drug.My current neurologist never proscribed it, because it is not as effective as Amatriptoline, was never approved for neuropathy treatment and costs hundreds of dollars per month while Amatriptoline works better and cost about $7.00 per month. I too have heard of Cymbalta and I asked my neurologist about it. He feels that it is still to new to be using in place of Amatriptoline which has a long proven record of low side effects. There are many new drugs that come on the market and are promoted aggressively by their manufacturers. Then as time passes problems start to show up and they are eventually withdrawn from the market. I have had personal experience with 2 such drugs. One was Resulin as an oral diabetes drug and the other was Halcyon of help in sleeping with the discomfort of neuropathy. Both were withdrawn from the market after being in the market. Recently I had some liver problems, which were difficult to diagnose. While we can't prove Resolin was the cause it is know that one of its side effects was liver damage. I know of no side effects that I have had from Halcyon, but maybe that is only because I didn't take it very long before the FDA pulled it from the market. These drugs have made me leery of new drugs with a short history of use. It has also made me leery of doctors that prescribe them. I once had a doctor that I never felt very comfortable with. Then I found out that he had been a chemist before studying to become a medical doctor. I always had the feeling that he was treating me as a chemistry experiment. When that became clear to me I went in search of a different doctor. In other parts of this tread there are several vitamins, supplements and other treatments mentioned for neuropathy. I try to make maximum use of natural means where they are effective and only use hard drugs when something more is needed. Up to about a 100 to 150 years ago "patent medicines" had a bad name. One of the first examples of chemically isolating a drug was Aspirin. Native Americans had used White Willow Bark successfully for many generations. Then we Europeans isolated the active ingredient that we call Aspirin. We have all heard about the bad side effects of Aspirin, but few seem to know that White Willow Bark is just as effective and has NO adverse side effects. Drug companies though like to sell medicines on which they can get a patent, because that way they can control the market. They can't control natural substances, because they can't get a patent to protect them from competition. There is not one single drug patented and approved by the FDA that does not have adverse side effects and some maximum dosage that is lethal. The side effect that the drug companies get is profits. The side effects that we patience’s get are adverse health complications. My advice is to use natural vitamins, minerals, herbs and supplements wherever possible and to stay away from new drugs on the market until they have developed a good track record.
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11. RE: Neuropathy
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DRBain
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Talk about recalled drugs, I have taken all four of the COX-2 specific inhibitors and have been switched to another as each was pulled from the market. I am on the last one Cellebrex. I, like most that take these drugs, didn't have a problem with any of them. That the problem wasn't the side effects, which were known, but of not properly screening of the patients put on the med, that had a heart condition or high blood pressure. Someone has to be first to try new medications. Otherwise it will never have much of a track record. As long as it has been approved, I am willing to try it. Reye syndrome, a potentially fatal disease associated with aspirin intake in children with chickenpox or flu symptoms; allergic reaction in adults. (Willow bark is marketed as an aspirin-free product, although it actually contains an ingredient that converts to the same active ingredient in aspirin.) "Under no circumstances should white willow be mixed with other pain relieving substances, nor should white willow be administered to children." From: http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/white.... If there are no side effects then why this warning? Sure they seek patents, but this is done to avoid being undermined by other drug companies. Imagine, you as a drug company spends millions to research and do double blind studies, and then present your findings to the FDA for approval. Without patents, other drug companies could produce the same medication and rob you of your development costs. You wouldn't do that for long before you gave up completely. The claim of nature being harmless is bogus. I'll bet you wouldn't kiss a Rattlesnake or eat the tomato plant leaves.(tomato plant is in the nightshade family) The other claim that these naturalist sites make is medicine and drug companies never cure any disease again is false. Polio is no longer a problem. From:http://www.channel4.com/history/microsit... "Previously fatal diseases were overcome by new discoveries. Immunisation programmes in the West radically cut the mortality rates of such childhood diseases as measles, polio, diphtheria and whooping cough. In 1978, the World Health Organization announced the first disappearance from the face of the earth of a disease – smallpox – the result of a lengthy worldwide immunisation campaign." "In addition, the death sentence of diabetes was eliminated by the discovery of insulin in 1922. And since the 1940s, effective antibiotics saved billions of lives by combating septicaemia, tuberculosis, pneumonia, meningitis, post- operative infections and sexually transmitted diseases. Of course, such advances raised questions about the availability of treatment in the under-developed world. Bacteria also emerged that were resistant to antibiotics." "After the first kidney transplant was carried out in Chicago in 1950, transplants became increasing common and helped lengthen life. Drugs and advances in anaesthesia made major operations – such as open-heart surgery – a practical possibility from the 1940s onwards. "
Before you make claims that I am an insider, I am not. I am in no way in the drug industry other than being on prescription drugs.
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Dan
"I used to cry because I had no shoes until I met the man that had no feet"
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14. RE: Neuropathy
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caramel
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