I have never heard of anyone taking manganese for MG, I would assume if it had the results the article says it has at least one of our doctors would be prescribing it. It sounds like a cure or at least a quick road to remission. I don't mean to sound like I'm totally disregarding it, but I'm doubtful. It's definitely worth asking your neuro about it.

I am impressed with your desire to learn all you can about this disease. You must do a lot of research. Thank you for sharing what you learn with the rest of us. That's one of the reasons I love this group. Everyone is willing to share their personal stories.
Michele

Hmm good point if this was a do umented "cure" it would be more well known... Interesting ...

annie,

Again, thanks for sharing your research. I just wanted to add a couple of words of caution. First, that manganese is NOT the magnesium, which is something we should avoid, and drugs are drugs no matter how natural, and all have toxicity and side effects even if they have therapeutic uses.

A couple of red flags in this article: no emphasis on dosage and toxicity, he is selling something, his treatment success is anecdotal (in a disease that has spontaneous remission), and his understanding of the neuromuscular junction and mechanism of disease is faulty and incomplete (who can really blame him since the scientists don't understand it completely either, but some of what this author says is either wrong or misleading).

Manganese, when I looked it up, does have significant toxicity (including a Parkinson like syndrome) and we require very little in our diets to meet bodily needs. In general if we eat healthy diverse diets of things properly grown and our kidneys and liver and gut are working properly, any supplementation is just leading to expensive urine. Unfortunately that ideal situation includes very few of us, no matter how hard we may try (but as our parents and grandparents said--we should!).

Although pharmaceuticals may be unwilling to spend money on non profitable products; something that can be obtained inexpensively and marketed to desperate people will line the pockets of individuals.

Hang in there, hugs, b.

Annie, something that I think is important to note: this article doesn't cite any scholarly research. Why not? Presumably, because there isn't scholarly research to support what he's selling.

The closest the author comes to citing a source is linking to Dr. Mercola, who, for the record, has made extraordinary claims about the psychic powers of housecats.

If it sounds too good to be true...

From everything I have read, you need to get your manganese through your food, and very little is needed. But, I also came upon a possible cause of deficiency. Having too much iron, copper or zinc in the diet, possibly due to addition of these to prepared foods, such as cereals. If I understand correctly, each of these is needed, but compete with manganese, so if there is not a balanced ratio of these, there could possibly be a deficiency.

Thank you for sharing your research. I saw that article when I first came down with MG, and tried chelated manganese for two weeks, hoping for any sign of improvement, but no luck. I figure, if they do not know what causes an autoimmune illness, they can't rule anything out, so you never know. Thank you for taking the time to research, wouldn't it be great if you found something that made us all feel better? Keep up the good work! Sincerely, Tim