About a year ago, I started supplementing magnesium. It's been literally life changing. I've been working on a lot of issues with my health – asthma, migraines, fibromyalgia – but if I could only keep one fix I think it would be this one.
(I'm glad I don't have to actually pick. You can pry my migraine medications out of my cold, dead hands.)
I had previously tried supplementing magnesium as a migraine treatment. My doctor suggested I try Preventa, which contains 60mg magnesium. I took it for several months and didn't notice any improvement, so I discontinued it.
A year ago, my brother reported that he'd been supplementing magnesium and it had improved several issues that I also had. I give my family's health recommendations a lot of extra weight because they're very smart and because I figure their bodies are closer to mine so things that work for them are more likely to work for me. I asked him exactly what he was doing – taking 500mg every day for at least a few weeks – and copied it exactly.
Nothing happened for about a week and a half. Then, I woke up and discovered that my muscles were capable of relaxing. Exercise became pleasant. I stopped clenching my jaw. My blood pressure monitor stopped warning me that it had detected an arrhythmia that my doctors could never seem to find.
So here's what I've learned since:
Electrolytes include calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium. There are others. I don’t care about them right now. Your body uses calcium, sodium, and potassium to tense your muscles and magnesium to relax them.
You want 186-2300mg sodium per day. The average American gets about 3300mg. Side effects of insufficient sodium include nausea, headache, fatigue, seizures, muscle spasms, and coma. Side effects of too much sodium include muscle weakness, thirst, irritability, lethargy, and seizures. Table salt is a good source of sodium, containing 2400mg per teaspoon.
You want about 1000mg calcium per day. The average American gets about 1029mg. Side effects of insufficient calcium include osteoporosis, kidney stones, hypertension, stroke, and insulin resistance. Excess calcium is mostly dealt with by the kidneys (pages 2-4). Milk is a good source of calcium, containing 240mg per 400mL.
You want about 3000mg potassium per day. The average American gets about 2668mg. Your kidneys will mostly deal with excess potassium, but if they fail side effects include numbness, tingling, nausea, trouble breathing, chest pain, and heart palpitations. Side effects of insufficient potassium include constipation, fatigue, heart palpitations, muscle spasms, tingling, muscle cramps, low blood pressure, and thirst. I’m not totally sure about good sources of potassium? Like the best source on this list is dried apricots but you would need to eat like 2 cups of them to get enough potassium and that sounds like so many apricots. Bananas are pretty mediocre sources of potassium with 422mg per. Potassium supplements only provide about 99mg, or 3% of your recommended daily intake. Still, we seem to be getting pretty close somehow? Like add in that banana and you’re golden. I dunno. Moving on.
You want about 400mg magnesium per day. The average American gets “only approximately 50% of that.” Side effects of insufficient magnesium include hypertension, arrhythmias, heart disease, and diabetes (pages 5-6). Side effects of too much magnesium include diarrhea – which gets framed as a positive (“reduces constipation”) as often as not and is presumably not severe – and that’s about it unless you have kidney problems. Peanut butter and black beans are frequently recommended sources of magnesium, containing 49mg per 2Tbsp and 60mg per half cup, respectively.
To put it another way, you would need to eat about 16Tbsp of peanut butter a day to get enough magnesium. That's a lot of peanut butter.
Your drinking water can provide up to 30% of your magnesium intake – and, historically, often has. When tap water has a lot of minerals, we call it “hard water.” We don’t generally like hard water, so we soften it, which takes out the magnesium (and calcium).
You're probably magnesium deficient.
If you want to repair this deficiency, you will probably need to supplement steadily for a few weeks before you notice a difference. I recommend magnesium citrate, which dissolves in water and has a pretty subtle taste. Not that you have to dissolve it in water. I've mixed it in smoothies and taken it in capsules and added it to my water bottle – whatever is most convenient for the day I have planned. It all works fine.
Only in POTS-land do you realize you're not feeling well so you check your blood pressure only to find it's high. The solution? Chugging some electrolytes and salt (ie Propel and nachos and cheese).
