[MonikaT]

I have diabetic neuropathy so my legs are numb from the knees down. My hands are also fairly numb. The weird thing is this can be very painful, and sometimes I get pains in my feet that wake me up. Since this is nerve pain, taking analgesics or NSAIDS doesn't really do much. I have found that taking the amino acid L-Tryptophan at bed time does help. I stumbled on this by accident years ago. I was desperate for a good night's sleep. I hadn't slept well in weeks. I was also weaning off an antidepressant, and every time we lowered the dose, I went through days of pain in my feet. Knowing that tryptophan can aid sleep, I think I took 1000 mg. The pain subsided. The next day, I did some research and learned that raising serotonin levels can increase pain tolerance. I knew tryptophan raises serotonin in the brain which aids sleep, but I didn't know serotonin played a role in pain tolerance.