Stuff That Works - DLPA (DL-Phenylalanine) Supplement for Neuropathy

After undergoing an intense but  successful treatment regimen of radiation and chemotherapy for throat cancer in 2013, I found myself happily alive but with some baggage (i.e. side effects) from the treatment. FWIW, I was not a smoker nor do I drink enough for it to have been a cause. Your can read more about my time at Cancer Camp by clicking this HERE link.

One of the bothersome side effects was Neuropathy - especially in my legs/feet. It has not made its way to my arms or hands at this point. You can read about Neuropathy symptoms and learn more at this site.

As a partner in a retail store with my wife I am on and off my feet all day long - I also enjoy walking the dog for a mile or so every day so the weird sensation in my feet and lower legs really bugged me. One of the results of my search of the subject informed me that some people experience relief from or lessening of the symptoms by taking the amino acid combination DL-Phenylalanine or DLPA for short.

Even though I was doing daily stretching and staying fairly active for a 57 year old, the pain and numbness seemed to be getting more pronounced and sticking around longer through out the day.

After reading about DLPA, I picked up a bottle from Solgar on my next visit to my local health food store: Harvest Health.  

The dosage on the bottle was consistent with the recommended dose from the website (sorry, I cannot remember which site I was on) which is two of the 500 mg tablets a day. I take them a few minutes before breakfast and lunch. If you give DLPA a try, be patient. I began to notice a difference about two weeks into taking it daily. After three to four weeks it reached the level of effectiveness it is at currently. (As of today, I have been taking DLPA for 100 days or so.)

I wish I could say all traces of the Neuropathy were gone, but I can say they are much more tolerable that before I began taking the DLPA. Sometimes the symptoms are as low as 10-15% of what they were, but even at their most noticeable I would say they have been lessened by at least 50% all the time. There were times during my treatment - when things were the worst - that I could be very unsteady on my feet because I could barely feel them - they seemed to be disconnected from my body.

Anyway, if you are troubled by neuropathy, you might want to give DLPA a try. Remember to take it daily for at least a couple of weeks to see if it is helping you. DISCLAIMER: I have paid for all of my DLPA out of my own pocket and I was not paid to write this blog post. Hope it helps.