Why You Need B-Vitamins for Your Neuropathy

(Newswire.net — November 2, 2018) Darien, CONNECTICUT — So you think you have neuropathy or you may know you have neuropathy. Now what are you going to do? Probably, your doctor will most likely prescribe Lyrica or Gabapentin. If you do not know, Lyrica is an anti-epileptic medication that is used to treat the pain associated with neuropathy in an off label recommendation. When you take the maximum dose of 600 mg a day, you will probably experience dizziness, headache, and blurred vision. Makes you think which is worse, the illness or the cure? Neuropathy is a quite painful sequel to long standing diabetes or post chemotherapy complications. These medications raise the risk of injury due to a fall.

What you can do is to supplement with certain vitamins and herbs to quiet the symptoms. As far as I know, none of the recommended supplements or herbs have any negative effect on taking Lyrica or Gabapentin concurrently. I will attempt to explain the benefit of each B-Vitamin and suggested dosages.

B-1, B-6, and B-12 all support a healthy nervous system. Trust me, the nerves are involved in Neuropathy. Collectively, they help reduce pain and inflammation. B-6 has the added benefit of supporting the covering of the nerve. The B-Vitamins have been helpful in repairing the nerve covering. They are believed to ramp up nerve tissue regeneration and improve nerve function. So if decreasing neuropathy pain and inflammation along with supporting and healing, damaged nerves sound like a good idea, you would remiss in dismissing B-Vitamin supplementation.

Proper dosages of B- Vitamins should be your next question. Oral B-12 dose of 40mg daily sublingual administered seems to be the most effective. As a side note B-12, also known as methylcobalamin promotes better rest. If you have neuropathy, you are painfully aware of how your sleep is affected. So this should come as even better news as it will help your pain and repair the myelin sheath covering the nerve, and you get better rest. Since B-12 is a supplement, the pharmaceutical companies are not interested in it. You have to hear about it from a chiropractor!

B-6, affectionately called pyridoxine, is another weapon in treating neuropathy, especially for those who over indulge in alcohol. The dosages recommended for neuropathy sufferers are about 3 mcg/daily. Mcg stands for micro-grams not miiligrams. Maybe a talk with your health professional knowledgeable in supplementation is in order. While not conclusive, B-6 is believed to aid in cognition. So if it helps your neuropathy symptoms and can make you smarter, why would you skip this one. Of course it would help to give up alcohol as it depletes you of B-6.

B-1 thiamine, suggested daily dose for neuropathy is up to 9 mg a day. This is vague but one study showed the healthiest people consumed 9 mg. a day. So I would suggest the same if your goal is to be healthy. The good part is B-1 is non-toxic so you will end up peeing out the water soluble B-1 Vitamin that your body does not use.

There are certain foods that are loaded with B-Vitamins. It would surely help if you were aware of adding these to your diet.
-meat, poultry, and fish
-eggs
-low fat dairy products
-vegetables
-complex grains (oatmeal, quinoa, chia seeds)

I hope you have an appreciation of the importance of B-Vitamins in alleviating the painful symptoms associated with neuropathy. We offer additional therapies such as PEMF, Cold Laser, Rebuilder along with obvious nutritional recommendations for our patients at Core Health Darien. If you live in the Fairfield County region of Connecticut, you may want to attend one of our weekly Neuropathy Workshops in our office at 551 Post Road on Tuesday mornings at 11:30 a.m. Call 203-656-3636 for more information.