Jack Challem
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 Neuropathy. neuropathy is a general term that refers to nerve damage, which may be characterized by extreme sensitivity to pain or numbness. Alpha-lipoic acid is the number-one choice for treating neuropathy. Try 200 mg three times daily. In addition, gamma-linolenic acid, part of a family of essential dietary fats, can also help with diabetes-related nerve damage. Try 100 mg twice daily in combination with alpha-lipoic acid.
• Eye disease. Diabetes increases the risk of developing virtually all serious eye diseases. Inadequate intake of vitamin A, which is characterized by night blindness (i. |
| These are very serious conditions, so please work with your physician in treating them.
• neuropathy. neuropathy is a general term that refers to nerve damage, which may be characterized by extreme sensitivity to pain or numbness. Alpha-lipoic acid is the number-one choice for treating neuropathy. Try 200 mg three times daily. In addition, gamma-linolenic acid, part of a family of essential dietary fats, can also help with diabetes-related nerve damage. Try 100 mg twice daily in combination with alpha-lipoic acid.
• Eye disease. |
Joan Liebmann-Smith, Ph. D., and Jacqueline Nardi Egan
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 Lastly, little or no sweat may also signal peripheral neuropathy, which is common among diabetics (see Chapter 7) and autonomic neuropathy, a condition involving damage to the nerves that regulate sweating, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and other key body functions. Interestingly, autonomic neuropathy itself often signals diabetes. It can also be a clue to alcohol abuse, tumors, autoimmune disorders, and other serious diseases.
SMELLY SWEAT
Sweat itself doesn't smell. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Peripheral neuropathy may be reversed by treating the underlying disorder. Antidepressants, analgesics and antiseizure drugs help reduce RLS symptoms linked to neuropathy.
•Pregnancy. This is a common cause of RLS. The exact mechanism is unknown, but iron-deficiency anemia, hormonal changes and poor circulation may be culprits.
Recommended: Ferritin levels should be checked to rule out iron-deficiency anemia. No drugs to treat RLS are considered by the FDA to be completely safe during pregnancy.. .and symptoms usually disappear within one month of delivery. |
Joan Liebmann-Smith, Ph. D., and Jacqueline Nardi Egan
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| Numbness and tingling in the arms or legs can also be early warning signs of peripheral neuropathy (PN)—damage to the peripheral nervous system, the nerves that transmit sensory signals to and from the brain and spinal cord. As PN progresses, feeling in the arms, fingers, legs, and toes diminishes, increasing the risk of infections, wounds that don't heal, and consequent amputations. Uncontrolled diabetes is a leading cause of peripheral neuropathy in the United States. |
Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
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 We already know that GLA levels are low in diabetics, and recent studies indicate that supplementation is helpful for relieving peripheral neuropathy. GLA-rich primrose oil has shown promise in relieving diabetic neuropathy. Ounce for ounce, borage oil contains more GLA than primrose, and is less expensive, but studies have shown that it is not as effective as primrose for relieving diabetic neuropathy. |
James Braly M.D. and Ron Hoggan M.A.
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 Axonal neuropathy c. Brain atrophy d. Cerebellar atrophy/cerebellar syndrome e. Epilepsy f. Hypoperfusion, frontal cortex g. Intellectual deterioration h. Multiple sclerosis i. Optic neuropathy j. Paresthesia k. Peripheral neuropathy 1. Polyneuropathy m. Progressive neuromyopathy n. Ramsay Hunt's syndrome (epilepsy with myoclonic ataxia)
140. Obstetrical disorders: a. Recurrent abortions b. Stillbirths c. Infertility d. Subfertility e. Reduced time span of fertility f. Reduced pregnancy rate
141. Ocular myopathy
142. Opioidlike activity
143. Optic neuropathy
144. |
Andreas Moritz
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 Strokes, both ischemic and hemorrhagic, heart failure due to neuropathy, ischemic and hemorrhagic coronary events, obesity, arteriosclerosis, elevated blood pressure, high blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides were all known to be common consequences of a disturbed metabolism as it occurs in diabetes. In addition to these symptoms, impotence, retinopathy, renal failure, liver failure, polycystic ovary syndrome, elevated blood sugar, systemic Candida, poor wound healing, peripheral neuropathy, etc. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Venlafaxine (Effexor) and duloxetine (Cymbalta) have been shown to relieve the nerve pain that accompanies shingles and diabetic neuropathy.
•Anticonvulsants. Typically used to control seizures, topiramate (Topamax) eases migraines, and gabapentin (Neurontin) is helpful for people who have diabetic neuropathy or shingles pain.
If You Think You'll Feel Better, You Will
Jon-Kar Zubieta, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and radiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor.
Journal of Neuroscience.
Pain relief may be mind over matter. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 The study found a statistically significant improvement in the pain, tingling, and disability related to neuropathy in those who got the ALA. This study also looked at seventy-three of the participants who had type 2 diabetes and cardiac neuropathy and who had taken either oral ALA or placebo. Those who had taken ALA showed an improvement in measures of cardiac heart-rate conductance. |
Paul D. Blanc, M.D.
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 Rathet than shoemaker's polyneuropathy, glue sniffer's neuropathy was becoming a prime diagnostic consideration. An early case from Philadelphia was typical. By age nineteen, when the patient sought medical care, he had already been abusing glue for five years.44 He got high either by sniffing the solvent vapors generated by heating up glue in a pan or by inhaling glue vapors from a plastic bag placed over his nose and mouth. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| This study also looked at seventy-three of the participants who had type 2 diabetes and cardiac neuropathy and who had taken either oral ALA or placebo. Those who had taken ALA showed an improvement in measures of cardiac heart-rate conductance.
In an attempt to replicate these promising results, a multicenter study was conducted in which 509 patients with diabetic neuropathy received three weeks of intravenous ALA followed by six months of oral ALA or placebo. This time there were no statistically significant differences in ALA vs. placebo in changes in overall symptoms. |
Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
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| GLA-rich primrose oil has shown promise in relieving diabetic neuropathy. Ounce for ounce, borage oil contains more GLA than primrose, and is less expensive, but studies have shown that it is not as effective as primrose for relieving diabetic neuropathy.
Chromium deficiency is linked to impaired glucose metabolism, impaired glucose clearance, a decrease in the number of insulin receptors, and a reduction in binding of glucose to those receptors. |
Paul D. Blanc, M.D.
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| Hexane has even gained new popularity as a solvent for general uses, as documented by a report of progressive neuropathy affecring a California man who had repaired cars for twenty-four years.69 He used up to nine spray cans a day of an aerosol brake cleaner that turned out to be more than 50 percent hexane.
Even the old doping toxin tetrachloroethane, which should have seen its last use in 1918, is an old soldiet that has not completely faded away. As late as the 1960s, an outbreak of tetrachloroethane-related illness was reported in Bombay. |
Thomson Healthcare, Inc.
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 Diabetic neuropathy. New Concepts and Insights. Elsevier Science, New York, NY, 1995: 257-262.
Christophe A, Robberecht E, Franckx H et al. Effect of administration of gamma-linolenic acid on the fatty acid composition of serum phospholipids and cholesteryl esters in patients with cystic fibrosis. Ann Nutr Metab; 1994;38(l):40-47.
Engler MM. Comparative study of diets enriched with evening primrose, black currant, Borage or fungal oils on blood pressure and pressor responses in spontaneously hypertensive rats. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids; 1993;49(4):804-809.
Engler MM. |
| A case was reported of acute neuropathy following concomitant use of St. John's Wort and sun exposure. A 35-year-old woman took 500 milligrams/day of St. John's Wort for 4 weeks. She developed stinging pain on her face and hands, areas exposed to sun. During an examination, she had painful reactions to light brushing, air gusts at room temperature, and exposure to cold (5 to 10 degrees Celsius). Three weeks after discontinuing St. John's Wort, her symptoms improved and completely disappeared in 2 months (Bove, 1998). |
| The efficacy of topical capsaicin was determined in 22 patients with chronic, severe painful diabetic neuropathy over an 8-week study period in a randomized, placebo-controlled study. Significant improvement was seen with capsaicin 0.75% applied 4 times daily for the overall clinical improvement of pain status, as measured by physician's global evaluation and by a categorical pain severity scale. The capsaicin treatment group had a 44.6% decrease in mean pain relief on VAS versus 23.2% decrease with the placebo group. |
| The oil has also shown positive action against diabetic neuropathy, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and irritable bowel syndrome (Keen et al, 1993; Guivernau et al, 1994; Viikari & Lehtonen, 1986; Leeds et al, 1990; Cotterell et al, 1990). Data is lacking, but Evening Primrose oil may prove effective in relieving the physical and psychological symptoms of PMS.
Anticancer Effects: GLA may be a useful adjunct to primary tamoxifen treatment in endocrine-sensitive breast cancer; however, larger trials are needed to fully determine its role. |
| A one-year, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel study was conducted with 111 patients who had mild diabetic neuropathy. Patients were randomized to receive 12 capsules daily of Evening Primrose oil, providing 480 mg of GLA per day, or matched placebo capsules of liquid paraffin. Patients were evaluated at baseline and at 3, 6 and 12 months. Evening Primrose oil significantly (p<0. |
| Unproven Uses: Preparations of the drug are used for insomnia, aches, nervous agitation, enuresis nocturna in children, diseases of the bladder and liver, reactive agitative and masked depressions, melancholia, neurasthenia, neuropathy, organic neuroses, vegetative-dystonic disorders, mood swings, weather sensitivity, vasomotor dysfunctions, vegetative-endocrine syndrome, constitutional weakness of the nervous system, and vasomotor cephalgia. The tea is used as a sedative.
Homeopathic Uses: Eschscholtzia californica is used to treat insomnia. |
Dr. Jonathan Prousky, BPHE, BSc, ND, FRSH
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 Another side effect is sensory neuropathy, which can occur when doses as low as 200 mg are taken daily over 3 years, but usually the doses need to be in the range of 2 to 5 g daily to produce this side effect. The last of the worrisome side effects include central nervous system toxicity. To produce this in humans, doses at least 100 times the recommended daily allowance of pyridoxine (1.6 to 2.0 mg daily) would have to be administered.
In terms of the safety of pyridoxine, B. Rimland has seen only four cases of sensory neuropathy in almost 30 years of clinical experience with the vitamin. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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 Small-fiber sensory neuropathy would turn out to be the least distressing of the three autoimmune reactions I would experience over the next six years—each of which Ahmet Hoke would tie back to infections I'd had a month or so prior to the episode. In 2001, and again in 2005, after having had a seemingly innocuous bout of vomiting, I developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, or GBS, and became paralyzed as my immune system systematically damaged the myelin sheaths that coated my nerves, the same sheaths that are injured in multiple sclerosis. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Since aloe reverses "sludge blood" and boosts circulation to extremities, diabetics suffering from peripheral neuropathy (hands and feet going numb) are likely to benefit strongly from aloe vera supplements.
Click here for more science on aloe vera and diabetes.
Aloe vera lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
When used internally, aloe vera gel improves the quality of the blood and helps rebalance the blood chemistry in a way that lowers cholesterol and total triglycerides (in people with elevated levels). |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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| The disease, known as small-fiber sensory neuropathy, was, he elaborated, "probably the result of a recent virus."
"How does a virus attack my nerves?" I wanted to know.
"An autoimmune reaction," he said. "Most likely a protein on the surface of a molecule of the virus you had looks like a protein on the surface of the molecules of your nerve tissue. The body gets tricked by their similarity and attacks the small-fiber sensory nerves as it fights the virus. We call it molecular mimicry."
It was the first time—in that summer of 2000—that I fully grasped precisely what "autoimmune" meant. |
| Small-fiber sensory neuropathy, which leads to a permanent loss of some of the normal sensation in the hands and feet, and hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid. In addition, I suffered from vasovagal syncope, a fainting and seizure disorder caused by the heart sending incorrect signals from the brain to the vagus nerve and failing to pump enough blood through the body, "cured" by doctors surgically implanting a pacemaker when I was twenty-eight.
Still, when Guillain-Barre struck a second time in April 2005, it came as a devastating shock. You simply were not supposed to get GBS twice. |
Steven V. Joyal
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 Achieving optimal blood sugar control is critical to reducing the risk of blindness, neuropathy, kidney failure, cardiovascular disease, and other complications of high blood sugar. If you have type 1 diabetes or you are pregnant and taking insulin, we recommend aggressive monitoring of blood sugar levels (see "Fasting Blood Glucose Levels Defined," page 82).
Generally, people who have type 2 diabetes and want to achieve tight glycemic control need to monitor their glucose levels very frequently. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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| This is significant because most available therapies for those who have peripheral neuropathy, or damaged nerves in the peripheral limbs of their bodies, are designed to control painful symptoms, not to treat the underlying nerve degeneration. Others are protective therapies—such as Rituxan, which researchers hope will prevent autoimmune-disease relapses—but protective therapies do not help nerves to regenerate. "Pleiotrophin looks to be a unique growth factor that can cover long distances quickly," says Hoke. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 And B12 can C greatly improve nervous system function, which m also makes it beneficial for those with diabetic C
73 neuropathy and multiple sclerosis. It protects [J| against environmental toxins, enhances immunity, and may even help with sleep disorders.
Taurine for Bloat and Water Retention
IN A MINUTE, I'm going to tell you how good taurine is for the heart (and for arrhythmias). But first let me just pass on a little folk wisdom to you. If you've got PMS— and especially if you feel bloated—think taurine. |
Andreas Moritz
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| In addition to these symptoms, impotence, retinopathy, renal failure, liver failure, polycystic ovary syndrome, elevated blood sugar, systemic Candida, poor wound healing, peripheral neuropathy, etc., have since been turned into separate diseases, requiring specialized treatments and specialists to administer them. Although this may greatly serve the medical and pharmaceutical industries, it causes untold suffering and costs many lives.
Diabetes afflicts over 8 percent of the American population. |
| Other long-term diabetes complications include abnormalities of small and large blood vessels; neuropathy (nerve damage); damage of the skin, gums and teeth.
It is estimated that by the year 2010 diabetes will actually exceed both heart disease and cancer as the leading cause of death through its many complications. It is my hope that more and more scientists and doctors begin to see the strong link that exists between all these "diseases." They are metabolic disorders that share a common cause, but show up as different symptoms. |
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