Posted by chemist on May 10, 2004, at 12:20:34
In reply to Re: neurontin poop out after awhile, fixable, chemist? » jlbl2l, posted by chemist on May 9, 2004, at 20:55:43
sorry, jlb121, i neglected to answer you question about calcium/magnesium supplements for augmenting the efficacy of neurontin...i don't think that supplements of either cation would make a difference, although there is one report i was able to find (perhaps there are more) in the literature in which researchers were seeking to identify the calcium-channel involvement of neurontin. they found that magnesium chloride - which, upon hydration, gives you a hexahydrated Mg^{2+} cation and Cl^{-} (cannot recall first solvation shell, but likely >> 6 and not relavent here) - injected into the spinal cords of rats that were pre-dosed with neurontin non-competitively inhibited the action of neurontin when the rats were exposed to painful stimuli (Anesthesiology, 98:1472-1479, 2003). there is a (what appears to me) contradictory finding (for neurontin blocking pain sensation at the spinal level), see J. Korean Med. Sci. 18:255-261, 2003. there are a few reports of people taking a ``mineral supplement'' who feel better than before, but there is no specific mention of what receptors are hit and i think we all, in general, feel better when our diets are well-balanced and we are getting enough vitamins and minerals. if you take a supplement - and maybe some other posters out there have had success, i just don't know - you might want to avoid magnesium and go for a chelate of calcium (not a salt of an inorganic, e.g., carbonate), such as the gluconate. elimination in solution (what i mean: how much you will lose in urine) should be lower for the chelate, as it will partition into your fatty tissue and stick around longer. i would also recommend that you do not take anything acidic (e.g., orange juice), as the solubility of metals increases with decreasing pH, and you might want to take an antacid to further buffer your stomach acid. calcium and magnesium do induce different effects in other systems, such as in skeletal muscle, where the calcium-ATP hydrolysis rate is faster than the magnesium-ATP hydrolysis rate. magnesium is almost always in the hexavalant hydrated state, whereas calcium has been observed with 7-9 waters of hydration. these cations will substitute for each other provided there is enough room to do so, and there usually is, and the effects can be quite pronounced. in summary: there seems to be a chance that calcium supplements might help, but you'd have to get it into your system such that it reaches the channels in addition to all the other places where it is needed, and i'd say that short of going right into the CSF, it doesn't look promising, although i hope some other poster (or you) will enlighten me.....anyways, sorry for the long-winded answer, and all the best, chemist
poster:chemist
thread:345062
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040510/msgs/345386.html