This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

I have seen posts mentioning supplements etc and I was hoping for input over what vitamins / supplements should be taken, and if possible why/what effect they have. I'm looking for a basic regime - if it's too heavy I will run and hide.

As there are other new to MS people here I thought it might help them too.

(ps sorry Jimmylegs, i know you pm'd me last year but I was in total denial and did nothing about it)

Hi MrsGeorge,

basicly there is no strong scientific evidence (like large doubleblind placebocontroled human trials) for the use of any supplements to improve the dissease coure of MS.
Most of the recommendations come from findings in animal models or small human studies - you will find notes on most of them when using the search function of the ThisIsMS.com forum.

For myself I take:
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daily...
2x 350mg GreenTee Extract (EGCG)
2x 1000mg N-Acetyl Cysteine
1x 125mg Niacin (Flush-Free)
1x 1000mg Vitamin B12
Omega-3 salmon-oil capsules

From october to april (low sun exposure) I take 1x 2000 i.u. Vitamin D

You also might want to check you blood uric acid level and in case they are not in the upper norm range some evidence shows positive effects when those peole take the drug Inosine to raise the UA level to the upper norm.

--Frank

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Treatment: CCSVI both IJV ballooned 09/2010, No DMDs, Tysabri on hold after 24 Infusions, after LDN, ABX Wheldon Regime for 1 year.

Amino-acid. And hell, I'm trying to push just beyond that

hi mrs g no worries

IMHO it's a good idea to back up any dietary changes and supplementing with bloodwork, including long-term monitoring a couple of times per year.

okay if you don't want to go overboard right away, ignore the klenner protocol ;D

a healthy diet and lifestyle supported with a good quality multivitamin/multimineral is a great place to start.

here are some very basic targets for bloodwork and preliminary suggestions for supplementing:

vitamin d3 - get it up over 100 nmol/L.
you can do this in the long term by taking 4000IU per day. balance carefully with calcium (1200mg), magnesium(1200mg), and zinc(normally up to 50mg).

vitamin b12 - minimum 500 serum value.
you can take 1000mcg per day sublingually. important: take in conjunction with b50- or b100-complex. the b group vitamins occur together in food because they work together.

magnesium - just keep it in the centre of the normal range if possible.
600mg-1200mg per day. you could even start as low as 250mg morning and night. zinc and b-complex are useful aids to magnesium utilization. it's also best taken on an empty stomach, and at least half of your daily intake at bedtime. get a soluble form, or stay near the toilet. the insoluble forms are great for constipation :S

zinc - keep it well inside the normal range.
to get it where you want it, take 100mg per day - 50mg morning and 50mg night - with testing after a couple of weeks or a month. then continue at the recommended daily level thereafter.

also daily acidophilus and essential fatty acids, from fish and flax or supplements, are beneficial. as mentioned previously, inosine is a uric acid precursor. so are purine-rich foods and you can look those up on wikipedia under 'uric acid'. antioxidant foods and things like A, C, E, and selenium won't hurt either (within reason!).

i am going to restate that nutrition has been very important and successful for me because i personally had a very restricted diet for 15 years prior to dx. i have had to totally change what i eat. the things that i was missing from my intake screwed up my absorption from the things that i did eat, and i've been deficient in b12, iron, and zinc, and low in d3 (lab supported), also low in uric acid, magnesium and b-complex (anecdotal).

nothing that i've done so far has restored me to 100% symptom free condition, but there have been improvements from the outright amazing to the merely interesting.

so far, magnesium seems to be the clear winner in helping the most people with the biggest array of symptoms. it can be useful in cases of:

muscular stiffness/spasticity (myself, cheer's hubby, lori),
twitching (facial - my brother, or otherwise - myself),
weakness (myself - breathing),
loss of functionality (myself - dysphagia/swallowing),
loss of sleep (my mother, artifishual, nenu, myself),
constipation (anyone!),
menstrual cramping (myself),
bursitis (family friend, reported after the fact),
heart palpitations (my brother, who also had facial twitching), and
muscle pain (my stepdad - it had been waking him up at night for years).

hopefully that wasn't too much at once

sorry also, d3 is for immune system regulation, b-complex for nerve and immune health, magnesium and zinc for multiple body systems, fatty acids are anti-inflammatory, acidophilus for gut health, and antioxidants to combat oxidative stress.

I'd add Acetyl-L-Carnitine 4x500mg/day, N-acetyl-cysteine 500-1000mg/day, Milk thistle 500-600mg/day (it enhances liver function and protects from overload from toxins and suppements) and if you have insulinoresistance chromium picolinate >200mcg/day.

at your own pace of course mrs g

Dude! this is quite scary!

Might just print off the thread and take it to Holland & Barrets! How much money is this going to cost?

depends how much you start off with at once, i guess! you could just start with a quality combination multimineral/multivitamin and build on it slowly. while you're taking a multi you can read up on the next thing you're considering buying and price it out, just take your time, take it easy. who knows how many combined years of info we're tossing at you here, no rush!

I am 14 years since diagnosis and still look normal to all. I think the vitamins are extremely beneficial.

Omega 3 - 2000mg a day (good for closing down your blood brain barrier to the immune system)

Vitamin D-3 - 3 or 4000iu a day (most MSers are highly deficient in this)

B Complex - speeds up the nervous system conduction

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Had ms for over 19 years now.

just called the pharmacy and they can't find anything on it.( magnesium glycerophosphate )
called Smiths pharmacy in Toronto where i use to get LDN and they don't know of it either.

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Had ms for over 19 years now.

confused?

I'm start out by saying that Jimmylegs is really on this topic.

What you don't see here is anything that established priority. Many of us will easily spend antoher 30 bucks to by something because it helped someone else. I'm not saying that's ok, I'm saying it's human behavior regardless of whether you have MS or not. If you don't beleive me, pop on down to the local vitamin store and look at all the cans of stuff with pictures of guys and gals with flat tummies and ripped muscles. Someone is buying the stuff. Lot's of someone's.

My point is that it's human to be impressionable like this and my wife is taking 2 shot glasses of supplements a day. Of those, we have personal experience that one of them - Vitamin C Ascorbate from Magnesium, etc.... actually does something. The rest we take on faith. Jimmylegs has personal experience with B-12 this way. Kim's doctor wrote her a script for 50,000 IU vit d, so he thinks something positive about it.

If you are inclined to the feeling of wanting to do everything you can, you wind up taking all sorts of things. Many of us here feel that way. If you are hesitant and on a budget, you need to prioritize and discern your way through this. So lets start with, don't take anything unless you know why you're taking it. Pretend you are going to defend your supplementation to your inquiring neurologist. You can find convincing stuff from medical journals on many of these. But, if you read them are you convinced? Would you feel foolish defending the idea to your neurologist?

Know what you are doing and why. I recommend that you write the reason down somewhere and save it. If I had done this, it would have saved me a lot of time when we were preparing to see Dr. Sriram. Remember that any reason that begins with, "I read on the internet that ...." doesn't hold water. Find the study that backs up the opinion. Ken

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My Starting Point
Understanding MS 101: Doctor Talk and People Talk<br /><br />

i just googled magnesium and thought i would throw this out there. i maybe should have put it in the everything but the kitchen sink thread
i am much to far along for vitamins, thought it would help back up jimmy's theory on magnesium

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Had ms for over 19 years now.

you're not too far along robbie. give your body what it needs.
napay, i agree it's so important to know why you do what you do. at first i would always take abstracts to my docs. now i don't have to, they know that i did the research. plus in most cases that i've taken supplements there's been good reason to believe i would be low, and in many cases that supposition has been supported via the lab.