No Alpha Lipoic Acid...and now I remember why.

I had taken some Alpha Lipoic Acid for a while, rather sporadically and without too much conviction, during the time I was on thalidomide.  This is a pill (though it can also be given intravenously) that is used with diabetic to combat neuropathy, and it's also been recommended by some Myeloma centers (for example, Dana Farber had it in their regimen, at least in 2006, as can be seen here.

However, a more recent paper presented at ASH in 2009 is titled Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) Inhibits the Anti-Myeloma Effects of Bortezomib.  That's pretty dry, as far as light reading goes.  However, anything that makes Velcade (Bortezomib) not work as well is off limits.

As I type this, there's no pain or numbness.  It feels like my shins are asleep, if that makes sense to anybody.  Except I wouldn't say the tingling is significant...it's barely there.  Yet still, enough to notice.

One reader was kind enough to mention B vitamins.  I do take, on my Revlimid nights, something called Folast.  This was supposed to be a generic form of MetaNX --  a complex of folic acid, B6 and B12 -- which is used to combat diabetic neuropathy. I read here, however, that Folast has an inactive form of one of the B vitamins, which makes it not as effective.  MetaNX uses the active form of these vitamins.  So I better fight for the non-generic!

This post is a little link-happy but this information is specific enough where I wanted people that might be interest to be able to read the same source materials that I'm reading.