Hi all,
Has anyone tried Alpha Lipoic Acid for nerve pain? I am on Apixaban and can't find any contraindications with this supplement. The best formula is apparently R-Alpha Lipoic Acid, but this is very expensive. One reputable company sells a 50/50 mix of R-Alpha Lipoic Acid and the synthetic S-Alpha Lipoic Acid at a much more reasonable cost.
Thanks, Mike.
Is that the only medication you are on? Do you take any medications for diabetes , statins , blood thinners or prescribed nerve pain medication?
To be frank as a person that suffers from various neurological pain problems I tried ALA for a few months before I was on medications for heart problems.
I didn't find it made any difference to any of my pain , I've known other people who have tried it and didn't feel any noticeable difference either. I've known people whom tried it instead of statins it made no difference to their total cholesterol results . I've also known people whom tried it to help with blood glucose with no significant change in insulin sensitivity, and a few whom had no change to their HBA1C but had a number of different hypos and periods of tachycardia and near fainting.
It is also known to increase bleeding time and erratic heart rate so this is something to be careful of.
So , depending on your full medication profile it may not be suitable for you but as most of the research into it's benefits have either been very small, not necessarily reproduced and very mixed you could actually be spending quite a bit of money on a supplement that will just create some rather expensive wee.
The most beneficial dose without potential side effects for each condition it is meant to benefit has not been recommended by people whom ran studies so the right and safe dose has not been established.
Depending on what body areas your neuropathic pain is you may find that their are better supplements or creams that would benefit you more , or a more appropriate prescribed medication if they don't help. If you feel comfortable sharing information on your nerve pain people might be able to give you more tried and tested tips.
Getting your basic vitamin and mineral baseline range tests done at the GP is important when you take medications or have a cardiac or neurological condition as deficiencies often cause this type of pain . Request the GP to test your full blood count , liver function , kidney function, ferritin/ iron , Folate , Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D , these should be done every 6-12 months depending on your previous results.
Taking a B 12 and a Folate supplement usually help nerve pain and you can take these without the chance of toxicity, plus if you are on antacid or statins or over 60 you may not be absorbing these well from food and this can cause various cardiac , nerve , thyroid and insulin sensitivity issues.
If your Vitamin D is insufficient ( below 80nmol/l) a D3 supplement may also be required to help reduce symptoms including nerve pain.
A Magnesium cream or lotion , like the ones from BetterYou applied at night is good for nerve pain, joints and restless legs. Some people can take supplements but it can be problematic for people on heart medications whom get low night time blood pressure.
Anaemia can also cause more nerve pain. But you need to establish with the base tests if you require supplements for things like Vitamin D and Iron or if a salt imbalance is adding to your problem.
You can always increase the foods in your diet that include ALA instead and these will also have other nutritional benefits without the potential of side effects or taking a large dose that could cause arrhythmia. Otherwise , you may want to give a trial of this a miss as it is expensive.
Wow, thank you for this in-depth reply. The only other med that I take is a statin. I have had two doses of shingles albeit quite a few years ago. That has left me with Allodynia which flares up mightily every now and then. I have had two spinal operations, lumbar and cervical and my thoracic spine is stiff and painful to say the least. That again fluctuates and I deal with it as best I can through exercise, massage etc. I started looking at Alpha Lipoic Acid a few years ago as it helped two friends of mine. However, neither has AF. I sometimes feel I am grasping at straws for relief when the pain is really bad which can make me very anxious, which of course can make the pain worse. Thanks again. Mike
I've had nerve pain from my spine and peripheral neuropathy for almost 30 years now and never found anything to help. The doctors only ever offer gabapentin and amitriptyline which do absolutely nothing. The only thing that ever helped when my Vit D was so low it couldn't even be measured was a short course of very high dosage but that didn't last long.
Thanks. Yes I know what you mean about gabapentin and amitriptyline. I have tried them but all they seemed to do for me was clog up my brain.
If you stopped taking the vit D without a maintenance dosage or active sun bathing your level would just go back down again. After a short course of high dosage another blood test should be done to see if the desirable level has been reached. If still deficient large doses can be taken until the level is optimal. Then this has to be maintained usually by a lowered dose. My granddaughter ( does not go out enough in the sun or eat vit D rich foods) had a very low level on testing. It took nearly a year of taking 8,000iu a day to get from 13ng/mL to a level of 50ng/mL. It is also better to take a magnesium supplement alongside as this helps the assimilation of vit D.
The recommended safe daily dose to take of Vitamin D is a maximum of 4000iu.And , obviously, before taking the higher daily doses over 2000iu people are recommended to get their Vitamin D level tested by their care provider because Vitamin D can cause toxicity and taking the high doses of it are not recommended if your levels are normal or at the high end of the range used as a measurement in your country of origin.
Not everybody should take a Magnesium supplement, especially if they have low blood pressure ( hypotension) or take medications that slow the heart rate or lower blood pressure because it can cause the BP or HR to become too low , especially at night. This is if particular consideration for people on our forum whom may be in this situation.
My granddaughter's twin sister was diagnosed in the UK at the same time with vit D deficiency. She was prescribed 8,000iu a day. High doses are regularly prescribed in cases of deficiency . I myself have been prescribed loading doses of 400,000 iu here in France. This is a common practice here. My sister in the UK was prescribed very high dose treatment when a parathyroid tumour was discovered. Vit D researchers have shown that vit D toxicity is very rare and you have to take huge doses over several months. As for testing in the UK good luck with getting a test on the NHS. Here we can just go down to our local blood test lab and get a test without a prescription by paying the fee - around 20€. It is simple , quick and you get the result the next day. I have never on this forum suggested that people should take very high doses without any form of testing. The recommended doses in the UK are a joke because they take no account of the widely different levels in assimilation by individuals. There should be no recommended doses - only recommended levels for sufficiency and upper levels for toxicity. But that would involve more widespread testing which of course costs money. The body can make around 10,000iu of vit D with 30mins full body sunbathing at solar noon so this upper limit of 4,000iu is just an arbitrarily chosen figure.
The 4000iu figure is given as one that has been researched to be safe.I had severe Vitamin D deficiency. At the time I was treated my result was 13nmol/l.
Yes, often UK GP surgery level care and doses for Vitamin D deficiency can be very inadequate but in severe circumstances you are given loading doses that sound huge as a total but this is given over several weeks or months.
It's probably a good idea to explain that when you state you were prescribed 400, 000 iu , that obviously isn't given as one dose.
The amount of loading doses chosen can differ widely between adults and children.
It's only usually in the most severe cases that doses are given over 4000iu , and around 8000 iu over 6-8 weeks.
Then ordinarily they continue higher doses but on a downward sliding scale and if the problem continues with little change they begin to test for other reasons for you not metabolising Vitamin D effectively.
In my case , Functional Vitamin B12 and Folate Deficiencies were the cause.
I also have Pancreatic Enzyme Insufficiency so oral supplements processed in the stomach were not appropriate to solve my deficiencies.
But there can be various reasons for the lack of response to therapy.
I suppose the one positive I can get from the experience is that they finally admitted I had an uncommon gastric issue and it meant I was tested for PEI and my Chronic Pancreatitis was properly recorded.
Yes, in the UK Vitamin D testing is inadequate. Even with my severe deficiency, I was refused a third test by the lab , not the GP, because I'd already had one at my GP surgery and the NHS limit is one every 12 months. They do have a bad habit of just assuming that if you get the therapy it will have worked so you won't require confirmation.We contested this because my previous surgery test had shown that my Vitamin D level had not responded very much since my hospital test so I could still be Deficienct. They did another and it was.
The loading doses were less but for a longer period.
At that point it's recommended under UK guidelines to be assessed for other causes for the lack of metabolism because otherwise you could be taking large doses of Vitamin D with no response.
All people with health issues or on certain medications , or whom have had previous Vitamin D Insufficiency issues are recommended in the UK by NICE to have their Vitamin D tested for free at their GP surgery every 12 months ( the NHS limit). They won't call you in for it and usually "forget" to put it on your monitoring blood list but you should get it when you ask for it even if your previous test result was normal. If the GP refuses you can ask for a written medical reason for the refusal ( we know it's money) this usually means they reverse their decision and do the test.
We aren't in the dark ages over here. We can also choose to get a private test if we want one without an approval from the GP. We can choose to do it via post, at certain chemists, or have blood drawn and have it through the recommended UK labs. We can also choose to request a private paid test at a subsidised rate by using the NHS lab testing service.
Not everyone can resolve their Vitamin D deficiency by sun exposure. There are some people whom have functional Vitamin D issues which means that the metabolic cycle and metabolic loop for storing Vitamin D between the skin and kidney , or stomach and kidney do not work effectively. This often requires more complicated and long term treatments when standard oral supplements or sun exposure aren't adequate.
The UK figures for Vitamin D toxicity aren't readily available but it does occur and usually because people take larger than the recommended dose of Vitamin D without doing adequate tests. This is why they use safety guidelines on dosing.
On average 4,500 cases of Vitamin D toxicity occur each year in the US, again the most common cause is that people take very high doses of Vitamin D without testing and ignore the government guidelines.
You don't know what happens in other countries. Yes the 400,000iu WAS given in one dose. It comes in a glass ampoule dissolved in alcohol . My very first loading dose of vit D was 600,000 iu in one dose though that was vit D2. I have had several ampoules of 200,000iu. As far as I am concerned the policies in the UK regarding vit D are poor compared to here in France where deficiency is taken more seriously. I lived in the UK for 49 years. My vit D levels were never tested. For a country that has so little sunshine ( the window in the UK when the skin can make vit D from the sun is mid April to mid Sept) and where large swathes of the population have an insufficient level, the attitude to deficiency is lackadaisical. The advice on sun exposure is inadequate and the actual recommended dose is a joke. The upper safe limit is set at 4,000 iu but people are not advised to take that amount. My stepson and granddaughter took 8,000iu for about 10 months and ended up with a level of 50ng/mL nowhere near approaching the toxic level which is twice that here . I am a person who cannot keep a good level of vit D on cholecalciferol. So my doctor has prescribed calcifediol drops which work really well. These are not available in the UK. My GP in the UK told me that the loading dose ampoules used in France were not available in the UK either due to cost. This may not be the case now. The levels in the Uk for insufficiency and deficiency are lower than they are in other European countries . I do not believe for one minute that it has been researched that anything above 4000iu is unsafe. On the contrary vit D researchers have experimented with giving much higher amounts over several months. What they have found is that there is very little toxicity beneath a level of 150ng/mL. 4,000iu as a safe upper level is extremely conservative. Even Dr Fauci admitted to taking 6,000iu a day during the pandemic.
The UK does prescribe calcifediol drops or a spray in certain circumstances. I have a spray.There are rare occasions in the UK when massive loading doses are given but this is done under supervision.
There are reasons , it can cause severe GI symptoms to take these large doses and there is a risk of hypercalcaemia. The UK seem to put emphasis on studies that showed large loading doses did give a rapid increase in levels after the dose was taken but that this was not sustained so smaller long term doses were deemed more appropriate for home and GP surgery administration. It isn't just about money , even though budget is often a problem in the UK.
It is true that large loading doses give a rapid increase in levels but that they will go down again if this is not followed up with maintenance doses . Daily dosing is preferable. This happened to me. I would then take 3,000iu of vit D daily. from Boots brought out by a visiting friend ( supplements in health food shops here are more expensive than Boots) . On this dose I could not make it into the sufficient range here - though in the UK my level would have been deemed sufficient. My GP suggested daily Cacifediol drops but insisted I take another loading dose of 200,000iu cholecalciferol to bring the levels up before starting the drops. The problrm with small daily doses if there is an important insufficiency or worse a frank deficiency is that they are unlikely to result in a progression to sufficiency for several months if ever. The recommended dose of 400/600iu a day taken in autumn and winter just won't cut it . As for GI disturbance and hypercalcaemia I'd bet the house that these are rarer adverse reactions than those seen with many other prescription medicines that are prescribed at the drop of a hat. Does the calcifediol spray give you a high blood level ? What many people do not realise is that the standard vit D test is actually measuring the calcifediol level in the blood and not the cholecalciferol that they are taking. In that respect it is also a measure not just of how much they are taking but how well the first hydroxylation by the liver is working.
The spray acts like the drops but it's delivered similarly to a GTN spray ( but to cheek and under tongue) so that it's absorbed via the skin in the mouth not through digestion.The UK guidelines for winter maintenance doses as I know them are between 1000iu- 4000iu a day , the dose depends on the person's individual need and if they have had Vitamin D issues previously. The most common dose being 3000iu which you can get with an OTC spray like BetterYou ( or a combination of the Vitamin D you get on prescription or from a multi supplement and the top up from a spray).
Summer maintenance can be recommended at 400- 1000iu a day depending on your needs.
I usually take a reduced dose of my spray each day , but if people use a OTC spray they can choose to take every two or three days depending on their need or a reduced amount of spray each day.
Gi disruption from large dose Vitamin D was pretty common in large dose testing and calcium release was something which required care in many patient groups like those with kidney , cardiac and bone issues which is probably the reason that it was thought to be a better precaution to give large , but not very large doses over a longer period ( as well as the fact that the very large dose was not sustained ).
The NICE guidelines state that adult individuals with risk factors should take 400iu all year round and for those adults without risk factors the recommended dose is 400iu in autumn and winter. The NHS webpage also gives this figure of 400iu. This is the amount that was distributed free to pensioners during the pandemic So I do not know where you are getting your figures of 1000-4000 iu from.. Are you saying that calcifediol sprays are availabe OTC in the UK now?
Oh that was all tested and maintenance dose given. I used to do a lot of gardening too until my spine became so bad I can no longer even walk across the garden so I'm back on maintenance dose.
I am a keen gardener too. But despite spending most of the day in the garden in summer, eating oily fish several times a week and taking the recommended measly 400iu a day supplement of vit D I was diagnosed with a severe deficiency in 2007. Because I have fair skin and it can be very hot here in SW France I wore light trousers and a t shirt that covered all but my forearms and when relaxing I lay in the shade. So I was not making enough vit D. Now I take daily prescribed drops and in summer I actively sunbathe for 45-60 mins a day. I still get backache though after working 2/3 hours in the garden!
I used to be a redhead so also have that fair freckled skin. My friend lives on the north coast of Norway way above the arctic circle ie no daylight in winter and no strong sun even in summer. It's compulsory there for everyone to take Vit D daily.
Yes the Scandinavian countries actually have lower levels of vit D insufficiency than some Mediterranean ones! I can tan but have to build up slowly. Luckily I can do that here as I can sunbathe from Feb - Nov on nice days.
If you are going to give a figure for vit D levels then you must give the measurement as well. 80ng/mL is very dufferent from 80 nmol/l. Which do you mean?
I'm using UK used measurements based on nmol/L range 80nmol/l converts to 32.1ng/ml .If you want to convert all of the figures you can use an online converter calculator, or do it manually by dividing the nmol/l figures above by 2.496 when looking at test results you might have using the ng/ml range.
This is an international forum so you should have stated that you were using nmol/l.
Hi, I started taking it 2 weeks ago as have had nerve pain down my leg after having sciatica last November. Not sure if it's a placebo effect but the last few nights I have slept on both sides without pain waking me up.
Without going into a long story about my partner who has diabetes, she found great relief from Ala on pain.
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