Tag Archives: Myelin

What Causes Peripheral Neuropathy?

Peripheral neuropathy is caused by damage to the nerves outside of the central nervous system. Autoimmune disorder is one of many conditions linked to peripheral neuropathy, resulting in chronic neuropathic pain, reduced mobility, and organ failure.

What Causes Peripheral Neuropathy?

The peripheral nervous system

The peripheral nervous system connects the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain) to the rest of your body. Everything you touch, taste, smell, and see is filtered through your peripheral nerves. Even your controlled breathing, heart rate, and digestive functions are dependent on having a healthy peripheral nervous system.

With impaired peripheral nerve cells, you may suffer any of a number of debilitating  painful ailments. Diabetes, pernicious anemia from vitamin B12 deficiency, and alcoholism are a few examples of conditions that cause severe peripheral neuropathy. If treated in time, nerve damage can be minimized or prevented altogether.

Nerve damage is often preventable and treatable, only if caught on time.

What causes peripheral neuropathy?

Listed are some illnesses, lifestyle factors, and medical treatments that are risk factors for peripheral neuropathy.
Autoimmune disorders

If you have a history for immune system dysfunction, then your chances of developing neuropathy are higher than others. Intrinsic factor antibody disorder is one such example that occurs when your immune system continuously attacks intrinsic factor, a necessary enzyme for digesting vitamin B12.

Vitamin B12 is absolutely crucial for protecting the nervous system, as it helps to promote production of myelin, an insulating substance that protects each individual nerve cell. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an illness that breaks down myelin and causes peripheral neuropathy- many doctors believe there is a link between long-term vitamin B12 anemia and MS.

As vitamin B12 levels plummet, your risk for developing neuropathic pain and damage increases incrementally.

Tip: If you have a family history for autoimmune disorder, then get tested for serum vitamin B12 regularly, and learn how to recognize the symptoms and causes of peripheral neuropathy.

Illnesses

Other illnesses and conditions that may cause peripheral neuropathy are:

  • Diabetes
  • Bell’s palsy
  • Kidney failure
  • Liver failure
  • Rheumatoid arthritis
  • Hepatitis B

Lifestyle choices

Alcoholism, smoking cigarettes, and sedentariness can also lead to peripheral neuropathy just by increasing your odds for cancer, organ dysfunction, and diabetes.

If you follow a vegan diet, then it’s essential to supplement with daily vitamin B12, in order to prevent peripheral neuropathy caused by vitamin B12 deficiency.

Medicine and surgery

Certain medications indirectly cause peripheral neuropathy by making you a high risk factor for vitamin B12 anemia. If you have been taking any prescription medication for several months, then ask your doctor to list all possible side effects that can occur over a long period of time.

Read List of Medications that Trigger Vitamin B12 Deficiency

If you have elected for gastrointestinal surgery, either for treatment of Crohn’s or for weight loss (gastric bypass), then it’s vitally important to take highly-digestible forms of vitamin B12 in order to prevent peripheral neuropathy.

Cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation treatments often result in peripheral nerve damage.

Sometimes, during surgery, a doctor may accidentally strike a nerve, causing nerve damage that can be difficult to treat later.

What else causes peripheral neuropathy?

Please feel free to post questions or comments below.

Image by renjith krishnan

Vitamin B12 Benefits the Whole Body

Vitamin B12 benefits: Vitamin B12 is amazing- it actually affect s your whole body, from your energy levels and metabolism to fertility and basic neurological functioning. Listed are some of the most awesome benefits of vitamin B12, and ways to make sure you’re getting enough.

Vitamin B12 Benefits the Whole Body

Sharp memory, cardiovascular regularity, nerve reflexes, and emotional wellbeing- believe it or not, these are all aspects of daily health that depend on your ability to maintain a steady supply of vitamin B12 in your blood stream.

Vitamin B12 benefits

Vitamin B12 is an essential nutrient that you only get from eating animal-based foods, such as beef, chicken, seafood, eggs, and milk products. There are no rich sources of vitamin B12 in any plant foods. To get the most benefits, it’s important to eat plenty of meat and fish, while also supplementing with high-quality vitamin B12 in a digestible formula.

  • Vitamin B12 protects the nervous system by sustaining myelin, a fatty layer that coats each individual nerve cell. The absence of sufficient vitamin B12 can lead to a breakdown in this crucial element, leading to destruction of nerve cells.
  • Vitamin B12 supports the production of healthy red blood cells needed to deliver oxygen throughout your body. Dizziness, brain fog and irritability from low oxygen can occur with vitamin B12 anemia.
  • Vitamin B12 boosts energy, as it helps your body digest carbohydrates and fat cells, producing usable energy in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate).
  • By controlling homocysteine levels in your blood, vitamin B12 benefits your cardiovascular health. Elevated homocysteine is linked with increased risk for heart attack, stroke, and even dementia.
  • Vitamin B12 benefits the whole body by promoting healthy cell growth, particularly with regard to the cell membrane.
  • In many studies, scientists found that elderly individuals with normal levels of vitamin B12 scored better in memory tests than senior citizens with vitamin B12 deficiency, and were less likely to suffer dementia prematurely. MRI results also showed more advanced brain loss in dementia patients with vitamin B12 deficiency than their peers who took vitamin B12 supplements.

 

Are you sure you’re getting enough B12?

With vitamin B12 deficiency, you may experience distressing signs of anemia- chronic fatigue, dizziness, depression, frequent painful numbness and tingling, plus more.

Unfortunately, many of us have difficulty maintaining a healthy level of vitamin B12, due to chronic conditions, lifestyle choices, or medications that interfere with your ability to digest vitamin B12 normally from foods.

If any of these apply to you, then you may not be reaping all the benefits of vitamin B12 needed for survival:

  • Autoimmune disorders
  • Vegan dieting
  • Prescription medications for diabetes or GERD (acid reflux)
  • Pernicious anemia in family history
  • Gastritis
  • Weight loss surgery (gastric bypass)

Get more B12 now

You can get the most B12 benefits for your buck when you use highly absorbable vitamin B12 that dissolves rapidly into your blood supply. For some, vitamin B12 injections, however painful, are sufficient. Still, many patients complain that they cannot get replenish their B12 levels to the max without using additional vitamin B12 supplementation.

Vitamin B12 Patch Box

 

Get the Vitamin B12 Patch for $19.95

 

Maxasorb Vitamin B12 Cream

 

Maxasorb Vitamin B12 Cream- $19.95

Can you think of any more vitamin B12 benefits not mentioned here? Have you noticed a difference in your energy levels since taking vitamin B12? Please feel free to comment below!

Image by Sura Nualpradid

Vitamin B12 for Tinnitus- There is Hope

A new study on the cause of tinnitus leads sufferers to hope that vitamin B12 may be an essential key in reversing frustrating ear ringing and phantom sounds caused by noise-induced tinnitus. Here are the results of the study, which focused on damaged nerve cells of the inner ears.

Tinnitus cure on the horizon

We know that exposure to dangerously loud noise decibels is a frequent cause of tinnitus. Now, researchers from University of Leicester’s Department of Cell Physiology and Pharmacology understand more about the kind of nerve cell damage that occurs when people listen to loud music or work in a noisy environment, and how it may be treated by promoting the myelin sheath, which is supported by vitamin B12.

This is great news for people who have been suffering from chronic tinnitus for years, as there are currently no conventional drugs or treatments available to cure tinnitus symptoms.

Vitamin B12 and myelin

Your nerve cells are coated with myelin, a fatty substance that shields them from harm and enhances intercellular communication. According to this study, noise exposure may damage the myelin which surrounds the nerve cells of your cochlea (inner ear), leading to tinnitus that occurs when the dorsal cochlear nucleus sends mixed signals to the brain.

So, by building myelin, researchers hope to possibly repair the ear’s nerve cells, encourage healthy nerve signals to the brain, and ultimately reverse tinnitus symptoms.

Vitamin B12 is an essential nutrient for your entire nervous system, as it helps to support continuous myelin production while also maintaining many other crucial mechanisms of your brain’s network of nerve cells.

In fact, one of the most devastating symptoms of pernicious anemia caused by vitamin B12 deficiency is a general breakdown of the nervous system due to demyelination- loss of the precious myelin layer. In addition to tinnitus, other signs of nerve damage caused by loss of myelin include immobility (loss of motor control), delayed nervous reactions, autonomous impairment (i.e. digestive problems), and cognitive problems (brain fog, memory loss).

For nerve cell health, doctors recommend vitamin B12 supplementation.

Vitamin B12 is the basis of all supplementation for nervous system integrity, as it is the best proven method to promote myelin production.

What is tinnitus?

Tinnitus is a condition that results from nerve damage of the inner ears. Symptoms include a variety of disturbing noises that are heard only by the sufferer; constant ear ringing, whooshing sounds, buzzing, clicking or whistling are just a few of the types of phantom sounds that occur with tinnitus.

In most cases, tinnitus happens as a result of acoustic overexposure to very loud noises, such as music, machinery, explosions, or constant hammering. Over time, nerve damage to the ears becomes more pronounced, leading to incessant ringing in one or both ears. Tinnitus can last more months or years, and may come and go in phases.

Help for tinnitus

If you suffer from constant tinnitus, then the first step is to boost your intake of vitamin B12 through supplementation. Even if you don’t have vitamin B12 deficiency, you may benefit greatly from the extra vitamin B12. Many people who take mega-doses of vitamin B12 regularly report feeling more energetic and mentally focused.

If you have tinnitus caused by ear damage, then continued use of vitamin B12 supplements will provide the best possible support for myelin production needed to sustain healthy nerve cells.

Related products

Tinnifree, Vita Science’s hearing support formula

Vitamin B12 Patch, containing 1000 mcg. of vitamin B12

Maxasorb, vitamin B12 cream

Sources

Could there be a drug to avoid tinnitus?               

Mechanisms contributing to central excitability changes during hearing loss

Research into hearing loss after exposure to loud noises could lead to the first drug treatments to prevent the development of tinnitus.