R ala and dosage

I think i saw somewhere that people built up the dosage of r ala, is that right or could i just start taking full dose of 600 -800
Thanks

I started taking it and don’t recall a startup period

Same here. I simply began without any startup curve.

Thanks so you all started at 600 mg?

Can’t speak for anybody else, but yes.

If I may ask - why did you start taking it @Eric2 and is it effective for you?

I have thought about it after reading Bernstein to lower insulin resistance, but the price scared me a bit.

It is pricey, no getting around that. It’s also helpful with neuropathy, if that happens to be an issue.

It is a powerful antioxidant. It helped me quite a lot with my neuropathy. I started out taking 200 units per day and noticed a difference almost immediately. Eventually I ended up taking 600 units in the morning and 600 units in the evening for about three years.

It is pricey. But it’s cheaper than insulin. The only place I found that carried anything larger than 100 units was at Vita Cost online. Overall their prices are pretty good as well. I could buy 200 unit capsules there. That made more sense than taking 12 caps per day.

This is a well-known and widely used supplement. There is a lot of very good information online about it. All of my doctors were pleased that I was using it. Funny thing is, none of them told me about it.

The brand that Bernstein recommends (and that I use) is Insulow. He likes it because it also contains biotin:

R-ALA reduces body stores of biotin, a substance that aids in the utilization of protein and a variety of other nutrients, so when you take R-alpha lipoic acid, you might be wise to take biotin supplements also—unless you are taking Insulow, which already contains botin.

[Richard K. Bernstein, Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution, 4th. ed. (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011), P. 256]

1 Like

Did you find you got pins and needles with r-ala?

I was way beyond pins and needles by that time. On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain would fluctuate between a six and a 10 throughout the day and night.

What I noticed with the r-ALA was that it seemed to take the edge off. I could tell a difference if I did not take it for a couple of days. It was a big part of what I did to reverse my neuropathy. But, it was only a part.

2 Likes