Muscle Wasting and the 3 B's

Laker7491 said...
Traverler, yes I am taking that too, it doesn't seem to make any difference. I am open to anything. I have tried Tramadol which was too hard on my liver. I take 3200 mg of Gabapentin for my neuropathy which that doesn't seem to help with my muscle pain.

I take Corydalis 10:1 extract which doesn't seem to help much either. I have medical marijuana which helps by relaxing so much I fall asleep. I have kratom but it really stopped working for some reason, so I'm taking a break from that.

Epsom salt baths help but I have to keep getting in and out every couple of hours. I also take infrared sauna which helps but I can only take one 3very other day.

I never even thought about looking up pain herbs in my Buhner book. I'll do that now. It's just getting kind of scary. I try to use a stretchy band to try and keep up the muscles but a lot of the time it's just too painful. I can't wait til I see my new doctor.

Thanks so much!

As Girlie asked, what dose of Gabapentin are you taking? If you are on lower doses, the higher doses may still help. Pain is carried by nerves, so it could easily be something that would help, as Gaba is for nerves.

The other thing is that you said Epsom salt baths help - they mainly put magnesium into the body (of course, the warm water soak helps too), so that's saying that you need more magnesium.

The other thing with the Gabapentin - are you taking it 3 X daily or twice? I'm doing twice now , but my GP said 3X can be more effective.

Yah - I guess it's not meant for muscle pain...just CNS and PNS mediated pain.

Laker7491 said...
Thanks ChickenArise and Girle, I appreciate your input.

I was alternating between three or 4 different types of kratom. All red strains of kratom for pain. I was up to 8g. Maybe one of the problems may be that I have to mix it with food, usually applesauce. I keep thinking I'm going to get a capsule maker but haven't yet. It will be 3 months will the end of May so hopefully it will begin to work again.

Girle, I have a 3200 mg dose of Gabapentin. I'm not sure but it's close to the max. It really makes no difference with my muscle pain. It does help with the neuropathy.

Hope you're having a great day!

My favorite Kratom strain for pain is Green Maeng Da and I have rotated most. There is a strain called Horn which I do not like. The reds are powerful but they are my second least favorite.

I do take it with food (yogurt) as the first dose of the day, but the following doses are all liquid mixtures. A little ice tea at the bottom of a single size drink. Place it on the gram scale and tare to zero, then add the Kratom. This makes it somewhat portable in a cooler bag. I will rinse the bottle 3 times with another liquid to get it all because of its lack of solubility.

I will eat first if I know I must eat.

Yes it gets a bit concerning when you get to the higher doses. I have gotten up to 14 grams.

I envy the people who can take a break.

I wish I could alternate it with something to reset the tolerance, but my only other choice I have is Oxycontin and it doesn't always work to reset my tolerance.

Yet I have tried switching for 4 or 5 days when the Kratom fails. I don't worry about addiction to Oxycontin because I will never take it for long and I always try to get back to the Kratom sooner than later. Sometimes I just switch when there is a failure (tremors) and I go back to Kratom the next day. Soon I will not have the luxury of doing this.

I wish there were an easier way to 'bio hack' this issue. I am trying to find it. I know that one day I will stop it all and suffer for a month instead just to know thyself.

There are some Kratom potentiators such as coffee, but I have to be careful with this also.

Laker7491 said...
Girlie, my doctor had me taking it 3x a day but to be honest I did not notice any difference in how it affected my neuropathy pain. Now I just take it 2x a day. Sometimes if I don't have much pain I only take it when I need it. It all seems to work the same to me. I can't wait to get off it.

Thanks much.

If it doesn't help, why do you continue to take it? Are you going to wean off of it?

It doesn't really work to take 'as needed'. It needs to get into the bloodstream and have a constant level.

Girlie, I guess you missed my post where I said that I'm not using kratom right now since it stopped working. I'm waiting three months before I try it again. I again, there is no sense using something that doesn't work. Besides it tastes god awful.

I know that my doctor told me that about Gabapentin, but for me after taking it faithfully for years as prescribed, there were times after being diagnosed when I just couldn't choke down one more pill. So if my neuropathy wasn't bad I didn't take it. If it was bad I did, and it seemed to work just as well. It could just be a placebo effect. But it seems to work pretty well with my neuropathy when I take it that way. Also, if I took it as prescribed, sometimes it would really fire up and I would be out of my Gabapentin for the day. So I know it's not supposed to be taken that way and I wouldn't recommend anyone else to take it the way I do, but for right now it's working.

Girlie said...
... the Gabapentin.
I don't know if the good day with less pain is because of the Gabapentin...or is it because the new treatment is working.

Just a heads up on a Gabapentin side effect which many people experience that I dont want you to confuse with Lyme.

After being on it for a short while, you may find yourself searching for a word to finish a sentence. You know that you should know this word but you find yourself at a loss to recall it.

This is a very common side effect of Gabapentin (trade name Neurontin). So much so that doctors have an inside joke and refer to the drug as 'Morontin' when they think no one is listening.

It can be concerning if you dont know what is causing the mild confusion.

My friend thought he was beginning to experience dementia from old age. I assured him that it was the Gabapentin and if he wished I would tell him how I tapered off. He did this and his mental capacity returned in a month.

Huddie said...
I have major 'Morontin' and have never taken Gabapentin

LOL Huddie!

I was on 300mg three times daily for a couple years. It helped the pain in the thoracic region of my spine in the first 10 days of using it. At the time I needed the help that it offered.

I started having the cant locate the word in my brain and cant complete my sentence side effect. It was annoying because I was used to being very quick witted in my responses.

Last year I was going to have to go up another 300 mg as I wasn't getting relief at 900mg any longer and I was at 1200mg.

Rather than do this I decided to taper and go down by 300 every 3 days and made a solution to come down the last 300 by dropping 50 mg every 3 days.

In my case I feel it was masking a pain that I needed to feel to gauge my progress with other treatments. The thoracic is much improved now.

You are at 300mg less than my former dose. If you aren't experiencing it, then I wouldn't worry. You would know if you were experiencing this. Its just good to know this so you don't blame the Lyme.

You dont have to wait to start taking collagen. It is commonly simply undenatured chicken cartilage. The undenaturing is so it doesnt spoil in the capsules.

Cartilage isnt delicious but it is easy enough to chew. I eat it off of the bone and that soft plate attached on the chicken breast. Food is always the best medicine.

I hope I posted this in the correct thread.

Dacarte - I know what you mean - I have always had muscly calves and very toned - they are smaller now even though I have gained all my weight back and am exercising.

So not sure - it could take longer though.

Girlie said...
Dacarte - I know what you mean - I have always had muscly calves and very toned - they are smaller now even though I have gained all my weight back and am exercising.

So not sure - it could take longer though.

My body has shown it can still build muscle (in all the other areas), I guess I just have to go extra hard in these lyme problem areas and over a much longer period of time.

I've also looked into hand and wrist strengthening exercises that climbers use. They are these contraptions that have different shape holes in it and you mimic climbing. Professional climbers use it with good results.

Bumping out of curiosity to see if there's an update on Muster Seed and village crazy lady if they still post on here.