On Saturday of last week I had a pivotal moment. Lying on my bed, exhausted, exhausted of being exhausted, weak, with a racing heart and chest pain, I had to get up and go to a party. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t stand the idea of making myself do that. But then I took a step back and looked at the larger picture. This was the millionth time I had done this in the last eighteen months, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try again. (Go here for the science behind it all.)
Looking at the pieces of my life and diet, it clicked into making sense in a way that it hadn’t ever before. There was no magnesium in my current diet (I had given up on greens in an effort to reduce my fiber intake). I had enormous salt cravings. The further in time I got from the time I removed greens in my diet, and the more stress I was under, the more salt I craved. In January of 2012, when the anxiety first started, I had also first started taking Spironolactone, a diuretic that flushes magnesium from the body. I have had the poorest sleep of my life in the last eighteen months. There were a million different ways to tell the story of my health, but this was one of them. I thought: why not try some magnesium and see if it helps?
It did. Almost instantaneously I felt better. My brain no longer felt frayed. My heart stopped racing. Magnesium is important for supporting the contraction of heart muscles, and it also is one of the key players (if not the key player) in turning off the firing of nerve cells. Things got quiet in my body. And they no longer felt exhausted. They just felt… normal… and for the first time in longer than I could remember.
My brain was quiet. I wanted to weep with relief, but I was too awe-struck to do so.
In the last eighteen months, I have of course experienced some normalcy. I have been able to hold onto who I am, and I have been able to act and to live and to do things that I would have done ordinarily. I published a book, I started a blog, I went to school and wrote papers. I met men and women and slept with them. I went out dancing. I laughed. But all of it was just. so. hard. to. do.
The world was no longer naturally rosy the way it had been in my first couple of decades. I had to struggle every day to be as grateful as I always had been. I had to fight to be happy. I had to start seeing two therapists and to have long, drawn out conversations with my friends and family members (to whom I am infinitely indebted) in order to calm down all of the anxious thoughts running through my head. I checked myself into the hospital one time because my heart was racing so fast. It was an absurd and terrifying time. What was wrong with me? Was there something physiologically wrong with me, or was it a psychological problem? Was it both? How long was this going to take? Was I ever going to get better? Or was I forever condemned to life being so fucking hard all of the god damned time?
I have no idea what started the whole thing. Maybe it was in fact the Spironolactone (which I stopped taking in June of 2012). Maybe it was 24 years of chronic stress. Maybe it was the insomnia that’s plagued me my whole life. That doesn’t really matter, however. What matters is that it happened. I now know intimately how painful mental illness can be, how devastating life is when your brain and body aren’t working properly, how scary everything is when nothing seems to be under your control or going according to plan.
I’ll never be able to change that. Whether or not Spiro played a role in my problem, my brain learned how to be anxious. I can still fall into those traps. I can still walk right back to the horrible questioning and pain that I often fell into in those past 18 months. I am no longer actively fighting to resist those traps, but they are still present in my mind.
A week after my “miracle” I am feeling the same. I have managed to maintain a sense of wellness. Do I have trust in it yet? No. That is going to take serious time. There have been many different occasions over the last eightteen months in which I have thought I found the answer, that I was “cured” or “better” or at least “released.” None of them brought me any sense of permanent relief. I only edged more into wellness slowly, and then often falling backwards after a stressful event.
A week after my “miracle” I have also learned some things. Three days ago, I began having anxiety again, the kind that crops up with easy decisions and is enormously puzzling for that fact. My heart was racing standing in the Whole Foods aisle: which coconut oil do I get, the unrefined or the refined? These are the kinds of questions that have regularly sent me into fits of panic over the last several months.
The next day I woke with anxiety again. And my acne had sprung back to life over night. Over the past week, I had hypothesized that perhaps the magnesium was helping my acne (which has returned with a vengeance prior to my ‘miracle’). It sure seemed like it. I didn’t get any new cysts in the magnesium time and my scar tissue was healing. My thought was that the magnesium was now facilitating the uptake of vitamin A and D into my skin, which is crucial for skin health, as well as calming my adrenals, regulating hormone output, and also fighting calcium, which has the ability to calcify soft tissues — something I think has been happening in the dermis layer of my skin.
Remarkable, right?
So anyway. My anxiety and my acne came back. What happened? Was the magnesium miracle a fake? Did it not have any long term consequences? Was the problem really all in my brain all along?
As I was pacing outside my house and kicking loose bricks in the sidewalk, I had an idea: I had added seaweed to my diet in higher quantities in the last couple of days in order to offset any iodine or thyroid imbalances I might get from eating greens. I also thought the iodine would just be good for my thyroid in general. Maybe seaweed has calcium in it? If that’s the case, then I would cut seaweed from my diet and see if I went back to the blissful, relaxed state I had achieved over the previous week.
I went online, googled seaweed, and found out it’s the densest source of calcium in the human diet…bar none. It has “eight to ten’ times as much calcium as a glass of milk! I slammed down magnesium pill after magnesium pill yesterday and got better, if marginally. It would be a while before balance could be restored.
In order to really ramp up my recovery, I decided to take an Epsom Salt bath. I was a bit skeptical and nervous about it going in, but oh my god, ladies.
Seriously. My God.
Epsom Salts deserve a post all their own.
When I first got in the bath (epsom salts are 100 percent magnesium sulfate — put a cup or two of it in the tub with you), I laid there for a while and promised myself I’d stay in for 15 minutes. I played mind games to keep myself from getting too bored, even though I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to get up and do. When can I get out? I kept thinking. How long do I have to stay here to see if there’s be any effects?
Then it hit me. Somewhere in there, my body got the message, and it started sending an even stronger one back: “Stay the hell in this tub, woman!” it kept shouting at me. My limbs became listless. My brain, free. Something very strong inside of me really wanted me to stay in there. I re-filled the tub two more times. I emerged my whole face. My acne stopped aching. The swelling went away. The bumps on my face began to disappear.
At 11:46 pm I finally got myself out of the tub. That means I had been in there for one hour and twenty minutes.
My whole life, I have had a sore, tight neck and back that has given me countless headaches. For the first time that I can ever remember, I went to stretch my muscles after the bath, and I felt nothing. My body has never been more loose in my entire life. I can’t believe people pay hundreds of dollars for massages. One cup of Epsom Salts costs about 97 cents.
I wanted to call my brother and tell him to stop smoking pot and just start taking Epsom baths. But I was too relaxed to pick up the phone.
Later, as I was walking through the house, I tripped on my computer cord and almost knocked the computer off the table. Did my adrenaline spike? Nope. Did my heart jump a beat? Nope. Just a slow and steady thump thump thump.
All of which is to say, six million thumbs up for Epsom salts.
Today, I do not have anxiety, I do not have chest pain, and my heart is not racing. Seems like the magnesium/calcium balance really is important for my health, and that I have a long way to go for restoration.
I have also been doing some reading on magnesium and inflammation. Turns out — as it goes for many things — magnesium is crucial in this regard. This is probably why it’s been so helpful for my acne. When I take the Epsom baths, scar tissue all over my body heals. Magnesium is also an important factor in the use of calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, and vitamin K. I’ve been eating liver and salmon like it’s my job — but what good is it doing me if I don’t have the magnesium necessary to process it?
There will probably be a lot more troubleshooting moving ahead. While I don’t have anxiety this afternoon, I did feel my heart race this morning when I logged on to OkCupid. (My heart didn’t race when I got a call at 11am today about thousands of dollars of debit card fraud, but being ignored by an attractive individual? What this says about me I do not even want to think about). Clearly psychological problems will always be able to affect my physiological state. This is the case for all of us, for all of humanity, for all of time. We can’t escape it.
I also know that magnesium is not a miracle. It does not obviously fix everything. This is a lesson I learned the hard way. I was so excited about it when I first discovered how good it was for my anxiety that I thought it really would fix everything. Turns out I still have trouble sleeping, and, just like OkCupid, that probably has a whole lot to do with the stress in my life. Magnesium can help me deal with the stress, but it cannot make it go away.
Magnesium is a big part of the journey for me. I couldn’t recommend experimenting with it more highly, especially for people who are stressed, worry, or sleep poorly. Therapy will remain a part of that journey. And patience, and healing, and forgiveness. I cannot panic if things aren’t perfect, if they don’t feel good, if I feel unsettled, if I don’t sleep, if my menstrual cycles don’t become regular, if I don’t regain my ravenous libido. Like I said, that’s a part of being human.
I now know, however, that it doesn’t have to be horrible. That I can experience specific events of stress and react to them with my adrenal glands firing away, and then go back to normal. Go back to being excited about being alive. Go back to gratitude. Go back to a life without fear and without panic. Go back to losing sleep without panicking. Go back to being confident and ambitious and proud and kicking ass left and right in all of my endeavors. It’ll take a long time to figure out the shape of all of this in my life and to continue to learn how to have faith in myself and my body. But that’s the name of the game these days. This is a fact of life that I am happy to live with.
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Awesome!!! I have all of this–for many years now…So, what exactly did you do/take, just Epsom salt baths?
I do Natural Calm magnesium and also Magnesium taurate (the better form for heart muscles) throughout the day, and have been taking epsom salt baths at night. 1-2 cups of epsom per bath. 🙂
I would just like to say I take 750 mgs magnesium oxide before bed and it knocks me out. Cold. They say it is the least absorbable I would like to know how they know that when magnesium tests are so unreliable. And thanks for your story I had the same experience sort of I was a mess all over before discovering magnesium it even contributed to the demise of my marriage being deficient causes anger problems too. Me and my son are both now taking it faithfully
Wow, that’s amazing. I’m so sorry for your struggles.
I’d guess that at such a high dose – 750 is a very high dose – the inefficiencies of oxide absorption are overcome. 🙂
My understanding also is that calcium and magnesium taken together is fine. It was probably the Zinc in the seaweed that bound to the Magnesium making it unusable to your body.
I know this is an old post, but I’m experiencing anxiety and adrenaline rushes from adrenal fatigue. Funny, I too take Mag taurate in the morning then Mag Citrate throughout the day. Have you experienced any muscle spasms and cramps from your Mag dosing? I make sure I stay under 400 mg a day since it lowers sodium in the body. Just curious if you had to increase salt intake as well. Thanks and hope you are in good health!
yes i do tend to consume more salt than other people i know. 🙂 i also take now magnesium threonate, which is the only form of magnesium to pass the blood brain barrier, and it has helped a lot with my insomnia, anxiety, and migraines – it may be able to help with the mental stuff:)
Reading this was like reading my mail…So glad I found. Starting in Epsom baths tonight. What best form of magnesium to take orally and how much? Thanks again!
Good question. i personally take a mix of both magnesium threonate (the only kind of magnesium that can cross the blood-brain barrier!) and magnesium citrate in the form of natural calm. So the threonate I think helps a lot of insomnia and anxiety and the citrate is helping with my muscle tension management <3 <3
I’m curious how much you take, and if it’s possible to overdo it? I currently take a calcium/magnesium combination pill – maybe not the best idea! Off to search some more and see what the graduate student budget can afford… Congrats on figuring things out! 🙂
Your body will tell you if you are taking too much magnesium. If you reach “bowel tolerance,” that would be diarrhea, you are taking more than your body can handle at the moment.
Remember, magnesium citrate and magnesium sulfate are both used as laxatives. If you look on the Epsom salts box you will see instructions for taking it internally, and liquid mag citrate is what people preparing for colonoscopy are instructed to use to clean out their system before the procedure.
If you are having bowel issues with magnesium try the Epsom salts bath and or magnesium oil. You can make your own mag oil with Epsom salts, no matter what the people selling mag chloride say. Fill a jar with Epsom salts then fill it with distilled or reverse osmosis water just off the boil. Let it cool, put it in a spray bottle and use several pumps 20-30 minutes before a shower. If the salty crust that develops on your skin as it dries doesn’t bother you then use it any time, regardless of whether or not you will shower soon.
Transdermal magnesium, bath and oil, bypass the bowel and make it less like to give you the runny poo-poos.
I recently got some blood work back and my calcium and iron levels came back very low despite eating liver, sardines and seaweed almost daily. Magnesium levels were normal. Not at all what was expected and creating even more confusion for me. This along with low estrogen and low FSH. Any ideas? Not sure how to move forward especially in terms of supplementation.
have you been tested for anemia? also, blood levels of magnesim and calcium are not very good measurements of whether or not you have sufficient stores of either
I don’t know if this will help, since it’s been almost a year that you posted,
Serum levels of magnesium as used by most doctors is a very poor method of measuring cellular levels of magnesium. This very often results in the misdiagnosis of conditions that result from magnesium deficiency. As a result, doctors often prescribe unhealthy and sometimes dangerous drugs, while magnesium deficiency remains. This can result in heart trouble and many other health problems. Unless you have kidney trouble that prevents the flushing of excess minerals, you cannot overdose when taking baths with epsom salts. For the best source of information about magnesium, search Dr. Carolyn Dean.
I went to the health food store this morning to pick up some magnesium and noticed that is often paired with calcium. How would one know if that particular supplement is balanced? Btw, I picked up a liquid magnesium and have started with 1/8 tsp. I’m hoping for a near miracle here.
Two to one ca to mg is balanced, but if you are magnesium deficient i highly recommend steering clear of calcium supplementation for a while… get the mg back up to snuff first
Magnesium is so important. I have a very hard time absorbing, but have found that a compounded cream that my doctor prescribed works great. I just started experimenting by making my own magnesium cream.
If you’re interested here’s how I make it:
1. Pour a bottle of unflavored Milk of Magnesia though paper or cloth filter. Discard the liquid and keep the thick residue.
2. Melt 1 cup coconut oil
3. Combine and mix with a hand-held electric mixer (stick type works best): 1 cup melted coconut oil and 3/4 cup Milk of Magnesia residue (thick residue from the filter). This mixture will seize up into soft margarine consistency within seconds!
4. Store it in clean small lidded containers. You can keep it in the refrigerator but it holds consistency if left at room temperature except during very hot weather.
5. Use liberally as a hand and/or body lotion. It can also be used as deodorant.
Amazingly enterprising! How cool, thank you!
I recommend http://gotmag.org/ and their facebook group. Magnesium has help my neck/shoulder pain tremendously.
I love me some epsom salts! I usually use about 4+ cups in my bath and it’s like getting a massage without actually getting a massage. No more muscle tension!
I really like liquid mag chloride. It seems a lot easier on my GI tract than Natural Calm is. As far as I understand, we have to break down other forms into chloride.
ordering epsom salts right now!
I wish we had a ‘like’ button on blog comments.
I have also been suffering from crippling anxiety, fatigue, and insomnia for about a year. I found out in December that I was extremely low in iron. It was so low that my doctor gave me three iron injections. After that, I started taking high doses of iron, along with Natural Calm magnesium. I feel so much better you wouldn’t believe it. Now, I’m going to run out and get some Epsom Salts for a bath later tonight. It sound amazing. Thank you for sharing this.
Hi Stefani,
Great site. I haven’t been diagnosed with pcos but I had female hair loss that started at 17 along with acne. Both of which I still have at 40. I am assuming these are hormonal issues? I see you took spironolactone. I am taking 200 mgs a day for the hair loss and acne. Have been for the last 4 months. Did you ever have hair loss and if so how did you correct it? I don’t like taking medications.
Your comment
Hi Jenna, I would recommend you check out http://www.hairlossconsultant.co.uk as Sara Allison is a Trichologist who also specialised in gynaecology therefore she could really help you with your hair loss and PCOS, she certainly did wonders for mine and has many other great testimonials
Do you think it is safe to soak in the tub with epsom salt while having my period? Thanks. 🙂
Yes!
I’m just curious what I’m doing wrong. I made my own magnesium oil using Magnesium Chloride flakes – have been spraying as many as 75 sprays after my Epsom Salt baths while my pores are still open and allowing it to air dry on me. I felt a huge difference right at first and had loose bowels after 40 sprays in the beginning. (I’ve been using the oil for about 2 weeks) Now, I don’t feel like it’s working – my acne has flared back like it’s going to war with my face (it’s all along my jawline – very hard nodules under the skin). I hardly ever eat any dairy, except for the slight amount of greek yogurt I put in my morning kale smoothies. I take Vit D3 15,000 IUs/day orally for a deficiency. Is there more I can/could be doing? I also recently have started to transition to Paleo and currently am trying to cut out all processed sugars and flour.
Mg can play A role but certainly is not the only thing that factors into skin health. A paleo approach to health will go a long way. Further, I recommend checking out http://acneeinstein.com and http://purelyprimalskincare.com for the best help with skin the internet has to offer
Interesting. You say a small amount of Greek yogurt is barely any dairy. My acne flares like crazy if I have even the tiniest bit. Slight cross contamination from regular milk in my soy latte from Starbucks is enough to send my skin into acne hell. Might want to nix the dairy completely.
Yes. Even the tiniest amount wreaks havoc for me, too. Different for every woman. 🙂
hi Hannah, I am also on high vitamin D3 supplementation and recently had blood test with low Magnesium after starting fit d therapy. I was reading something today that points to this type of therapy affecting magnum levels adversely. I’m sorry I don’t have more information for you at this point but I am just now starting to look into this angle. I will keep you posted as i learn more. I hope you check back sometime and get this message.
Vulgar and tmi.
Don’t. post rude comments.
Loved your article and deeply sympathize I have been going through this for a few years ….I time it around my monthly cycle. ( Which is interesting because they say when your hormones are the highest mag is at its lowest)I just read a great article about mag oil- going to give it a try. Also just found out my vit D is 30 I guess that is not optimal….any thoughts on that??? Best of luck!! I hate the racing heart and all the other weird mental stuff
Yes, some sunshine I think could do you wonders. Vitamin D is important for a lot of things, and especially for the deposition and extraction of magnesium from skeletal and other tissues.
Also, something I have found is very important for me is avoiding sea salt. Too much calcium in it for me, I think. It sends my heart skittering.
Actually, spiro is magnesium sparing, meaning your body will retain magnesium along with potassium: http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=21463
Hi,
During those 18 months, what did you think you had? Adrenal fatigue and emotional issues?
Thanks!
Hello, Can you tell me why the calcium in the seaweed set your symptoms back up, and to get the good results back and undo the damage from the seaweed had to up your calcium dose and stop the seaweed?
Thanks
There’s more calcium than magnesium in seaweed so it upset the magnesium replenishing I was trying to do. Your body needs a balance between CA and MG, and if you have too much CA then your symptoms can come back
There’s also a ton of arsenic in seaweed.
I had a kidney transplant about 5 months ago. Despite taking 400 mg of magnesium pills 6 times a day, my magnesium levels are still low.(Below 5) Are epsom baths safe for me? Will they raise my magnesium level?
Yes, and yes. Don’t forget that magnesium replenishment takes a long time, so just stay consistent. 🙂
There may be some truth to your information & experience with supplementing magnesium, but your offensive language takes away from your credibility.
In your opinion.
It wasnt littered with swear words, which if it was I could understand your comment.
I know the frustration that comes with anxiety and health thats not seeming to improve with whatever I try…believe me I have swore and cried…sometimes ‘eff’ is the only word that expresses this.
To say it takes away from the authors credibility is simply wrong, and its a shame you cannot see someone putting their experience out ‘there’ to help others, to help you. Sorry thats lost on you 🙁
I work as a nurse and you should here some of the top consultants swear, as well as staff. I guess that takes away from the service we give to our patients ? It is a way to release stress in my experience, and I find when life is good, I swear much less.
Emapthy and tolerance and understanding should come before judgement and criticism.
The only ‘offence language’ is your comment Miss ‘holier than thou’Edwards!
This is a well written, informative article.
If you can’t appreciate the generosity of someone who is prepared to share their experience to benefit others then perhaps next time you feel the overwhelming urge to pontificate on the use of language, you’ll simply take that broom handle out of your butt and walk away…. quietly (and… a little awkwardly).
Seaweed, kelp, all that sort of stuff is extremely high in iodine. Iodine is known to aggravate/worsen acne symptoms. I suspect this is why your acne came back when taking seaweed, rather than its calcium content.
Your blog (y)
My question is ,what is the other way of taking epsom salt bath without having a bath tub.I have tried of adding in my hot water bucket n rinsing few a times but I think its nt helping. I have this back acne problem which is exhausting me out since long back and nothing helping it out,it comes back ofently.so jus help me.it would be great help.
I have been reading a lot about this lately. You can do a foot bath as well, which will be beneficial as far as transdermal application of Magnesium. Just buy a foot bath and use a cup of salts in it.
I never comment on blogs or articles but I also took spiro for my acne and stopped because of horrid side effects. I went to the ER 4 times because of my heart palpitations and horrible headaches. I thought I was going to die. This medication was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I went to a neurologist and she told me to try magnesium for my headaches and I have been taking them for over a week now. My heart problems have gotten so much better. I wonder what kind of damage this medication has really done to me. I have been going to the drs for three months now and no one can figure out what is wrong with me. I will forever warn everyone about the side effects of this medication. I’m glad to know someone else out there shares my pain.
Hey Misty 🙂 Thank you so much for writing. Since I’ve opened up about my expeirences with Spiro on the web I’ve had about five women come forward and say they had anxiety and heart problems while on spiro. There’s a more recent post called ‘the little adrenal gland that could; or, how stefani lost and is regaining her sanity’ with most of those comments. I haven’t been able to figure out the secret to healing, but I think magnesium has a fair bit to do with it. Stick to it no matter what – every time I let it go out of my life I get worse
I’ve been having chest pain on the left hand side of my chest over the heart area.been to see the doctor,had a scan ,blood pressure taken and everything seems ok according to the doctor.sometimes my heart is racing too.its about 11 months now and I will definitely try the Epsom salt bath.hope it works as I’m trying to enjoy life again because this pain is stressing me out …what do u think?btw thanks for the info..
Wisey: I’ve been having the same symptom (minus the heart racing)! It feels like I pulled a muscle…. I’ve just read the Magnesium Miracle and started taking magnesium. I’ll let you know if that works….
Thanks peg
Ive been taking magnesium for over a week. Im having on days then off days. Im wondering, when you said you were popping the pills like crazy after the seaweed revelation,how many mgs do you figure you were taking. Right now I only feel really good for about 1/2hr after drinking 200mg. Then I start getting brain fog and headaches. I cant drink as much as my body seems to want. I could try pills but im nervous I will take to much. Ive had panic attacks with agoraphobia for 23 yrs. So im pretty sure im totally depleated. Any advise would be welcome. Thanks Krista
Ive been taking magnesium chloride gel for about 2 weeks and my face is clear, no more acne :)))))
I have reading a lot about magnesium and i found that best is magnesium chloride which is appiled over the skin, so you you will not have a laxative effects 😀
I think that magnesium chloride is only true magnesium that rly helps 😀
Sry for my bad english, i hope that you could understand what i wrotte 😀
Hi Stefani – You wrote in this piece you’d eliminated greens in an effort to reduce your fiber. Can you explain more about this/why you wanted to reduce fiber? Thx!
-Michelle
Spironolactone does not reduce levels of magnesium in the body. Potassium sparing drugs like Spiro and Amiloride actually reduce magnesium secretion. This was simple to look up in medical journals.
I meant reduction via the diuretic effect, and also via usage from all of my resulting stress. I now know that my body is continuing to spare potassium, and that is my primary problem.
Hi, hope you can help, I have had a blood test that says my serum magnesium is high ( I now know its not the most reliable test but I am high so is it likely at worse I have ok levels of magnesium) Or does a high serum level mean nothing? ONly just out of range at 1.03 (range 0.7 – 1.00. My phosphate seems ok at 1.22 (0.8 – 1.5) Serum calcium 2.36 (2.2 – -2.6). Serum albumin 46g/l (35.0 – 50.0) serum alkaline phosphatase 184 (70 – 300) Bone profile?? 8%.
The problem is I have been supplementing D3 for 5 months as I developed asthma after a random bout of pneumonia, so thought d would help and then started also taking mag citrate for the same reason. THEN last month I had to take ciprofloxacin for something and it has put me in lots of tendon pain, shoulders, knees, hips, thumbs… What seem to help i foot baths with high dose epsom salts BUT when I got a high serum reading I started worrying I might endanger my health with too much magnesium. But as its the only thing that seemz to help, I don’t know what to do. ANy help would be appreciated.
Thank you!! 🙂
I just want to say you are beautiful inside and out! I love your post! This makes me want to just hug you! I just finally bought some Natural Calm Brand magnesium and I’m excited for it! It could be yet another missing link in my skin and stress! Love ya even though I don’t know you! But keep doing you!
For our body all the vitamins, calcium and minerals are more important without them we are felling weak and not we don’t have a proper energy so taking proper vitamins is more important.
“My brain no longer felt frayed. My heart stopped racing. Magnesium is important for supporting the contraction of heart muscles, and it also is one of the key players (if not the key player) in turning off the firing of nerve cells. Things got quiet in my body. And they no longer felt exhausted. They just felt… normal… and for the first time in longer than I could remember.”
Finally! You’ve worded what I feel like when I don’t get enough sleep or when I have anxiety attacks. My brain will feel frayed.. I am going to try the epsom salts bath… I too have acne..and sleep issues. Last week I remembered the magnesium oil I had stashed away after trying only once or twice (probably didn’t use enough). I sprayed it on my feet and massaged it in thoroughly..and put socks on. I did this at 8:30 PM and sat on the couch to watch TV. I literally fell asleep within 3 minutes sitting up, and slept so deeply for over three hours that when I woke up becuase the TV was on, I did not know where I was or what day it was. I hadn’t slept that deeply in years. After reading your post, I will be going out to buy epsom salts to try the bath, and then put the oil on again at night on my feet. It’s been over a year since you first wrote the post. How are you doing now? How’s your mind? your sleep? your stress levels?
I’m curious if you’ve tried the epsom salts foot baths vs. whole body in the epsom salts bath?
Hi Stefani – I have been suffering from Post Concussion Syndrome from a fall 2 years ago. I was never lethargic, stressed, anxious before the head injury (never even close). Now I have all those things on top of constant tension headache, dis-equilibrium (vertigo-y) feeling, and strong pressure/tension feeling in my head between my eye. Your statements about your brain feeling freyed with no energy to do anything – all ring very true with me. Interestingly, my Raynauds has gotten much worse (circulation issues?). So I’ve recently been reading about calcium blockers as a possible treatment. Would they have similar or overlapping effect to just increasing my magnesium intake? Finally, a blood test 1 year ago indicated my Vitamin D level was at 18, loooow. Since then I have been taking Vitamin D suppliments. How do all these…low D, more magnesium, less calcium all come into play? thanks! p.s CANT WAIT TO TRY EPSOM SALTS
Vitamin D will totally help with the mg and ca – taking a few thousand IU a day could do wonders. Calcium blockers I think would have a very similar / overlapping effects… basically Mg is a Ca blocker – in addition to tons of other things, of course.
I’m so sorry about your injury and your struggles… but at least you’re on your way to answers. They’re out there. 🙂
Also, consider perhaps some supplements that can boost production of inhibitory neurotransmitters? This has been INCREDIBLY important for me. I currently take tryptophan, a precursor to serotonin, valerian, a precursor to GABA, and passion flower, a GABA releaser. Holy basil has also felt helpful for me, though I believe that’s a bit more adrenal than neurological.
I’m so glad I clicked on and read this post! Makes me feel like I’m not totally crazy and that physical anxiety is a real thing. For the past two months I’ve had periods of racing heartbeat, nervousness, chills and hot flashes along with terrible anxiety. The anxiety is not new for me but I’ve never had physical symptoms. I brought this up to my doctor and he dismissed it all. Just reading your blog post makes me feel like I’m not alone in these feelings. I haven;t tried therapy but am thinking about it. I do take magnesium at night, love espom salt baths and my naturopath suggested a calcium supplement as well…… eating nutritrous foods will hopefully help but it does take work to ignore feelings of worry when they come on. Thank you for sharing this!
Hi!
I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditus in December. I got myself into a pretty good regiment of probiotics and D3 last year. In December I added Selenium to the mix and just added Magnesium this past week. I also have been using essential oils regularly which is helping overall. My fatigue is slowly fading but I’m certain I had an intolerance to gluten (which was what started out this journey that I wrote about) and now (like many) I’m just trying to “balance” out the rest of my system. Feeling better now than I have in a while – Thanking God for the modifications that are making the differences! =)
I found your blog as I continue to search for answers about magnesium deficiency.
Blessings,
Kenzel
Amazing story! I had something similar happen a couple years back after supplementing with calcium for a while. I’d never experienced anxiety before and then out of the blue I was having full-on panic attacks.
It took me a while to figure out the miracle that is magnesium but I’m glad I did. I take my magnesium orally (glycinate and malate) every day and my anxiety hasn’t returned.
I do get sick of taking pills every day though and your post is making me think I should try topical. Thank you for sharing this!
I give my kids epsom baths a couple times a week. Epsom salts are nice but taking a bath with regular salt is truly the way to go to get the energy flowing and the glow going. So shake it up using epsom but take the regular salt bath and you’ll feel amazing.
If you’re taking a lot of Mg (note that this is not so important if you’re using Mg Oil or Epsom salts, which are being absorbed through the skin and therefore aren’t “competing for absorption” in the gut), then you should occasionally take a Zinc supplement.
Reason: Zn and Mg compete for absorption in the gut, so taking a lot of Mg will block Zn absorption. If you start to run low on Zn, you will retain too much Copper and experience things like irritability and sleeplessness.
YES! Super helpful comment 🙂
Sleeping with men AND women?
If a bi man had written this he would not have been getting the positive responses you are getting from other men,sadly. 🙁
As a bi woman you can casually mention it due to Female Sexual Freedom and few take much notice of it.
Hi please can you help!! I’m currently trying to conceive but am struggling with PCOS acne, I already take 30g Zinc daily which hasn’t really shown any improvement in my skin how much and which magnesium should I take please?
Helpful Post.
Excellent Your Work
Thank for sharing…