Key takeaways

  • Acupuncture may help reduce symptoms and improve overall quality of life when used as a complementary therapy for myasthenia gravis (MG), but further research is needed to explore its effectiveness.
  • Speech and swallowing therapy involves targeted exercises that help manage MG-related muscle weakness in your head, neck, and throat.
  • Lifestyle habits such as avoiding common MG triggers, exercising regularly, and eating an anti-inflammatory diet may help reduce MG symptoms and promote overall health.

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disorder that affects the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) of skeletal muscle, where motor neurons and muscle fibers communicate. Unusual immune system activity in MG leads to the production of autoantibodies that attack the postsynaptic membrane of the NMJ.

Damage to the postsynaptic membrane makes it more difficult for your muscle fibers to receive motor signals. When those signals are weak or unreliable, your muscle fibers may not contract fully or at all. As a result, you’ll experience the classic symptoms of MG, such as increasing weakness during physical activity and weakness later in the day.

Doctors usually recommend treating MG with medications to help regulate immune activity and improve NMJ communication. Surgery to remove the thymus gland is also an option in some cases. But natural therapies might help improve quality of life for some people when used in combination with these medical treatments.

Natural remedies are those that come from natural sources or processes. Doctors may recommend some natural remedies alongside conventional MG treatments to provide more personalized, comprehensive care.

These natural remedies cannot replace first-line medical treatments. But some people find that adding natural therapies to their treatment plan helps improve their overall daily functioning and well-being.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient treatment method based in traditional Chinese medicine. It involves inserting fine needles at specific points on your body that are important to the flow of qi, or vital energy.

The philosophy behind acupuncture indicates that it helps restore balance by unblocking key energy points in your body. From a biological perspective, experts believe that acupuncture may help stimulate nerve pathways to release anti-stress chemicals, reduce inflammatory responses, and regulate nervous system activity.

The authors of a 2024 research review concluded that acupuncture may play a positive role as a supportive therapy for MG. In the research, acupuncture was associated with improvements in overall treatment effectiveness and quality of life and reductions in symptom severity.

However, the review authors noted that more high quality studies are necessary to verify the findings.

Homeopathic remedies

Homeopathy involves uses diluted natural substances to treat medical conditions. It’s a practice founded on the principle that “like cures like” and that the lower the dose of a medication, the greater its effectiveness. Homeopathic products are typically derived from plants, minerals, or animals.

While there is no large-scale, conclusive evidence that homeopathy is effective for treating any medical condition, some research suggests that certain natural extracts have therapeutic potential in MG.

According to a 2022 review on the use of natural products in NMJ disorders, certain plant extracts and plant extract combinations — particularly salts from berberine and alkaloids from plants such as the amaryllis — may help improve motor neuron and muscle fiber communication by affecting neurotransmitters (messenger chemicals) in the NMJ.

But that doesn’t mean homeopathy that uses those plants is effective.

In research settings, scientists can isolate natural substances and use them in formulations and concentrations that are not available to the public. It’s not clear how effective the commercially available forms of those substances would be in comparison to the forms used in highly controlled scientific studies.

Speech and swallowing therapy

MG can cause significant weakness of the muscles in your head, neck, and throat. According to a study published in 2025, people living with MG are 2.6 times more likely than the broader population to experience difficulties with their voice and 4.2 times more likely to have difficulty swallowing.

One natural approach to managing these symptoms is speech and swallowing therapy. Specialists can teach you exercises that may help improve your speech and make swallowing safer for you.

Swallowing therapy focuses on functional improvements such as:

  • maintaining the ideal head position while you eat
  • taking small bites of food and small sips of liquid
  • eating slowly
  • taking breaks between swallows
  • avoiding foods with textures that may pose a risk of choking
  • using strengthening exercises to help offset muscle weakness

Speech therapy may focus on:

  • improving speech clarity
  • using short phrases rather than long sentences
  • pacing yourself during conversations
  • taking breaks from talking to rest
  • identifying the times of day when you feel strongest for talking
  • developing alternative communication methods
  • learning to use voice amplifiers

Speech and swallowing therapy are evidence-based practices used in a variety of medical conditions.

Breathing exercises or respiratory muscle training

Breathing exercises are important for many people living with MG because the condition can weaken vital respiratory muscles such as the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles.

Overseen by a respiratory therapist, breathing exercises for MG may involve diaphragmatic (belly) breathing, inspiratory muscle training, and controlled breathing techniques such as pursed-lip breathing.

According to a 2025 review, these methods can help improve respiratory endurance (how long your breathing muscles can remain active before becoming fatigued) in MG.

Lifestyle and self-care measures are activities and habits that affect your health and well-being. They are habits you can change, and they lay the foundation for your overall wellness.

Conserving energy

When you have MG, your body quickly uses up a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which helps send signals from your nerves to your muscles to tell the muscles to contract. MG also makes it more difficult for your nerves to send those signals, which is why muscle weakness is a symptom of the condition.

As your body uses up acetylcholine throughout the day, your nerves are less able to send those signals, so your muscle weakness and fatigue will increase. You’re likely to experience greater muscle weakness after physical activity (which causes your body to use up acetylcholine quickly), as well as weakness and fatigue later in the day.

To help manage those symptoms, you may want to take steps to conserve energy, such as:

  • scheduling important or physically taxing tasks for early in the day
  • sitting more often than you stand
  • using a grocery delivery service rather than going out to the store
  • organizing your home so that frequently used items are within easy reach
  • resting when you need to
  • asking for help with physically challenging tasks

Managing possible triggers

Certain conditions and other factors can trigger an MG flare-up (a period of increased symptoms).

Possible triggers include:

  • hot weather
  • infections
  • fever
  • high stress levels
  • fatigue
  • certain medications and vaccines

Consider taking steps to avoid these triggers, such as spending time in air-conditioned spaces when possible, avoiding close contact with people who are sick, and conserving your energy to reduce fatigue. Talk with your doctor before taking a new medication or getting a vaccine.

It’s also important to talk with your doctor if you’re pregnant or planning to become pregnant. In most cases, MG does not cause pregnancy complications, but it’s possible that your MG symptoms may worsen during pregnancy. Your doctor can advise you on whether you need to make any changes to your MG management plan.

Exercising

Physical activity can worsen MG symptoms, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid exercise entirely. Exercise is still beneficial for strength, balance, mood, and weight management. It may help improve your daily functioning and support respiratory endurance.

According to a 2021 review, exercise is safe for people living with MG, and a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise per week is recommended for those with mild to moderate symptoms. Your doctor will work with you to create a safe fitness plan that meets your needs and goals.

Eating a healthy diet

A nutritious diet supports every part of your body, but it may also have specific immune system benefits for MG.

According to a 2025 study, prioritizing an anti-inflammatory diet low in animal products and high in fruits, vegetables, and fiber-rich foods may help reduce symptoms by changing the composition of your gut microbiome (the healthy bacteria in your digestive system) and reducing inflammation throughout your body.

Because MG-related muscle weakness can cause challenges with chewing and swallowing, MG can put you at risk of malnutrition. For this reason, it’s especially important to focus on including enough nutrients in your diet.

Taking certain supplements

Research on supplements for treating MG is limited and has mixed results.

Chinese herbal medicines are among the supplements with the most research. While some evidence suggests they may have benefits and appear safe for use in people with MG, more large-scale, current studies are needed to explore the possible effects.

People in certain specific circumstances may be more likely to benefit from supplements than others. Factors such as other health conditions you have, substances you’re exposed to, and your age may affect whether and why a certain supplement might be right for you.

For example, a case study from 2024 reported significant MG symptom improvement after vitamin D supplementation in someone who had undergone a gastrectomy (surgery to remove the stomach) as a treatment for stomach cancer before his MG diagnosis.

The researchers theorized that the vitamin D helped reduce inflammation throughout his body and supported muscle function by acting on vitamin D receptors in muscle fibers. However, the findings were limited to the specific use of vitamin D in MG after a gastrectomy.

Before taking any new supplement, talk with your doctor to make sure it won’t interact with any of your medications or cause serious side effects.

Possible natural therapies for myasthenia gravis may include breathing exercises, changes to your eating and swallowing habits, lifestyle changes, and complementary practices such as acupuncture.

Not every natural therapy is right for every person living with MG. You can talk about your options with your doctor and develop an individualized treatment plan that considers your goals, needs, and treatment preferences.