Magnesium and Your Nerves

Nerve problems can mean many things. It could mean damage in any of the 45 miles of physical nerves in your body that can cause various symptoms such as: burning, crawling, itching, tingling, numbness, prickling, pins and needles, or any type of pain.

Or you could be suffering from “nerves” with anxiety, panic attacks, apathy, or dread.

Then there are nervous system conditions from carpel tunnel to epilepsy with headache, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s in between.

Seeing the Whole Picture

I’ll give you several testimonials in this blog from people who took magnesium for their nerves. Sometimes, real-life stories help you see the whole picture because we’ve been brainwashed to believe that nerve problems are difficult if not impossible to treat.

“Magnesium is literally saving my life! After several visits to neurologists and EMG testing over my entire body the diagnoses was leaning towards muscular dystrophy OR early Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). But now I’m in my fourth month of intense, self-administered, magnesium treatment – oral, topical, baths – you name it. And I will tell you, I am almost 100% cured of the multiple issues – and I mean serious issues and symptoms I’ve suffered for over 4 years. I thought I was not long for this world that’s how bad it was. To me, it’s shocking that our Neurologists are CLUELESS with respect to magnesium. It’s shocking, sad and pathetic that anyone should suffer the horror I suffered because of a simple magnesium deficiency.”

 “I am an epileptic and have always been paranoid and have a huge amount of anxiety before big events. I would get so scared of having a seizure that I didn’t want to do much and would avoid social situations. Thanks to magnesium I am able to enjoy social situations again! I take magnesium and I am able to function and it really does help to relieve the stress and worry. It also helps that it is natural. I used to medicate myself for stress with alcohol and now, because of this product, I am a recovering alcoholic. I am able to stay truly clean, sober, and stress free without the help of alcohol and drugs like Valium or Zanax.”

Allopathic medicine treats serious conditions like epilepsy and nerve pain with Neurontin (gabapentin). And guess what? Gabapentin causes magnesium deficiency. Whereas if you take magnesium for nerve symptoms you actually have a chance of eliminating the cause of the problem.

Drug researchers say gabapentin affects the cells’ calcium channels binding to calcium receptors and thus preventing too much calcium from entering cells and causing erratic electrical signals between neurons. However, magnesium binds to these same receptors and properly opens and closes these calcium channels so you don’t get excess calcium and you don’t get erratic electrical signals. Whereas, taking gabapentin causes a host of side effects and also means you are depleting magnesium and can be making your symptoms worse.

One of the side effects of gabapentin is worsening of seizure activity. You gotta wonder about the wisdom of using a drug prescribed for seizures that can cause more seizures!  But now we know why; it’s depleting magnesium, so your muscles and nerves go into uncontrollable spasms. Magnesium deficiency can cause numbness, tingling, seizures, muscle contractions, spasms and cramps and should be the first line of treatment for any of these symptoms.

Diagnosing What’s Really Wrong

Here’s another magnesium testimonial:

“I went to my GP with MS-like symptoms gradually worsening over three weeks. I had difficulty with coordination, difficulty picking things up, choking on drinks, blurred vision, missed my cup when pouring boiling water from the kettle and forget what I was doing halfway through doing things. My GP announced that I had MS and that it was progressing quite rapidly. He prescribed a steroid, prednisolone. I asked for and took copies of all my test results home but refused to fill his prescription.

The following week I went back to see him, completely cured. I gave him lots of clues and tried to get him to diagnose what was really wrong with me and what I had used to cure my symptoms but he remained clueless. I finally told that I has severe magnesium deficiency and that I’d used transdermal magnesium chloride sprayed all over my body several times a day for the past week. I had to explain to him his mistaken diagnosis and he admitted that he was absolutely gobsmacked by all this.

I am now wondering how many poor souls have been told they have MS when in actual fact they have a ‘simple’ magnesium deficiency. I am appalled at my GP’s lack of knowledge. In any case one would expect him to know that magnesium deficiency is more likely than MS. His attitude was that this wasn’t his area of expertise. My response was ‘I thought healthcare was your area?’ and I asked him to remember ‘First do no harm.’ He had a very red face. I do hope he learned something…but I doubt it. I don’t think I will ever trust my GP again!”

Looking at my increasing lack of coordination, I am guessing I’ve had a magnesium deficiency for a number of years. I had assumed my symptoms were due to gluten ataxia from the delayed celiac diagnosis. I had 25 years of ill health before I suggested to my GP that I might be celiac. I was only diagnosed 3 years ago. I had atypical symptoms: a long history of terrible migraines, period pains and lethargy and tiredness, which can also be magnesium deficiency symptoms! However, my symptoms seemed to vanish on starting gluten-free diet. But, for at least 10 years I have been unsteady on my feet and regularly dropped things and tripped over things. But not since I began magnesium and I’ve noticed that even my gut feels better.”

Recovering from a Long-term Deficiency

Let’s look at one more case history that I included in The Magnesium Miracle®:

A 40-year-old mother of four, who I’ll call Susan, emailed me about a strange tingling sensation she was having on the back of her head – it had already lasted for 3 years. From her history I realized it was a combination of magnesium deficiency and yeast overgrowth from several recent courses of antibiotics. Instead of treating these conditions, doctors told her she had anxiety and gave her Ativan.

A year of taking Ativan did not help Susan’s scalp symptoms and when she stopped it suddenly, she went into severe withdrawal symptoms – heart palpitations, exhaustion, insomnia, dissociative feelings, and panic attacks. She was admitted to a rehab clinic and was put on Neurontin for the withdrawal symptoms.

Susan found The Magnesium Miracle and began taking ReMag to help her wean off Neurontin and get rid of the zombie-like feelings that it gave her. After two months on ReMag, she was 75 percent better with her scalp tingling, Ativan withdrawal symptoms, and much improved with her sleep and muscle pains. Then she developed what I call “Viral Gooleitis” because she was desperate and impatient to be 100 percent better.

She found a doctor online who described her symptoms exactly and called it occipital neuralgia – which simply describes the location of her nerve problem, which I said was still due to magnesium deficiency. He said Susan needed to fly to his clinic to do, what seems to be cranio-sacral therapy – gentle manipulation of the cranial bones to release pressure. However, if your scalp muscles are in spasm because of magnesium deficiency, it’s magnesium that will release those muscle spasms. Another doctor was offering Botox injections, to relax the muscles. I don’t recommend Botox injections because they don’t treat the underlying problem and can have dangerous side effects. Another doctor, a neurologist told her she may have a herpes infection in her occipital nerves and should take an antiviral drug, Acyclovir.

The lesson from this case is that you do have to be patient when recovering from long-term magnesium deficiency. You developed magnesium deficiency, often over decades and you can’t build up your magnesium stores overnight. Susan needed to keep sipping her ReMag, along with a multi mineral (ReMyte) in sea-salted water through the day. She also needed to begin a yeast protocol with Flora ReVive (an antifungal and soil-based probiotic) and Pico Silver to eliminate yeast toxins that could be continuing to aggravate her symptoms.

Millions of Anxious and Stressed People

Let me turn to anxiety, a nervous condition that is affecting far too many people in our society. The following is an excerpt from The Magnesium Miracle®.

How do we graduate from being a calm person in control of our nervous system to an anxious, fearful individual? I think it’s due to a gradual but chronic decrease in magnesium reserves. When the body is stressed – and it can be for a dozen different reasons, our magnesium reserves dump this crucial mineral into our blood stream, and we immediately become one of those people blessed with the ability to cope. We are both calm and alert. Our friends and relatives think it’s just who we are but it’s really how much magnesium we have in reserve.

If the stress continues and we don’t rest or replace our magnesium between episodes, our magnesium stores become depleted. Then, when you are faced with the next stressor, your stress hormones (adrenalin and cortisol) don’t activate your magnesium reserves with a calming effect. Instead, adrenalin revs up your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure, and tenses your muscles in a fight or flight reaction.

Millions of people try unsuccessfully to cope with their problems or medicate their stress with overeating, cigarettes, alcohol, street drugs, and other addictive behaviors to suppress their pain. We are a nation suffering a 32 percent incidence of anxiety, depression, and drug problems. Instead of treating stress reactions properly with magnesium, each year millions of people are introduced to the merry-go-round of psychiatric drugs and psychological counseling for symptoms that may in fact be rooted in magnesium deficiency.

You’re stressed out, not sleeping, tense, and irritable and you don’t know that simply taking a good magnesium supplement could pull you out of that downward spiral. All these symptoms are interwoven as you can see from the following cases of people who fortunately discovered that much of their suffering was due to magnesium deficiency.

“A very special friend of ours was going through a very bad patch earlier this year. A relative, who she was extremely close to was suffering with liver failure and another relative, who has prostate cancer had just had a test showing a rise in his PSA despite his good diet and supplement regime. My friend said she was suffering from dreadful stress and feeling constantly anxious with a tight pain constantly around her chest.

I suggested maybe it would be good to try some of the ReMag that her husband was taking. I think she thought it would be a waste as it wouldn’t change the situation. Fortunately, she did try it and literally a few days later she started feeling better. Her chest pains went away, as did her nightly cramps, and the constant feeling of tension lessened to such a degree she felt she could cope once more.

Sadly, her relative with liver failure died a few weeks later but she said the ReMag really helped her through what was an incredibly stressful situation.”

“I have been using ReMag for about 2 weeks for my anxiety attacks and they already feel so much better. I am up to 1tsp. twice a day.”

“I’ve been sleeping very well, experiencing very little or no anxiety, hardly any or no heart palpitations – this is after having suffered AFib and anxiety for almost 10 years. I’m stronger in the evening hours than I used to be and can do many, many things throughout the day and night that I couldn’t do before without some kind of a reaction. I do relax and rest and pace myself. I faithfully take my ReMag and ReMyte, ReAline and RnA Drops. Sometimes I don’t always get all my salt water down, but I aim to reach my goal every day. “

“I am doing all your formulas now as well as a soil-based probiotic and feel fantastic! My night sweats have ceased and I’ve had no more issues with my Crohn’s disease. Everything is moving along great. I have no more anxiety issues and I have increased energy. What more could I ask for!”

“I just want to thank you!  Because of you, I have renewed hope in life!  I have all the signs of magnesium deficiency – things I never thought about – like low blood pressure. I thought that was a good thing, but it’s gotten so low in the past that I had severe vertigo. I saw a doctor the day after I literally could not get up, and she said she was surprised I was vertical! She gave me IV minerals. She said to drink Gatorade, but I took sea salt water instead, like you recommend. I also have magnesium-deficiency muscle tension and anxiety that started in (early) menopause 19 years ago, for which I was prescribed Xanax! I’m already able to taper off that. I have many other niggling symptoms, all due to magnesium deficiency! I love what you write about first replacing minerals not hormones and I love your minerals. It all rings true and feels true.”

Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands

With the continuing magnesium depletion in our soil; increasing magnesium burn rate due to multiple stressors in our lives; medications that drain magnesium, and uneducated doctors prescribing drugs for magnesium deficiency, you do have to take matters into your own hands and make sure you have enough magnesium. If you are on drugs, try and educate your doctor and ask to be weaned off your medications when you start magnesium therapy. ReMag®, a picometer-sized, stabilized ion of magnesium is your best treatment choice.

However, as noted above, our multiple mineral, ReMyte® has a part to play in healing the nervous system; L’methionine in ReAline® is a precursor to glutathione which helps detoxify nerve tissue and the B Vitamins are important for nerve formation and regeneration; D3K2 has a neuroprotective effect; and the nutrients in Omega-3 Algae A+E are all important for brain development and neuronal membranes. Even our Whole C ReSet® and Vitamin C ReSet® can repair and prevent nerve damage and help synthesize and regulate neurotransmitters. Flora ReVive® and Pico Silver® are called into play if yeast overgrowth and yeast toxins are damaging nerve tissue. And Pico Silver® in its role of stimulating stem cells is active in nerve cell regeneration. Follow the dosage directions on the labels and call our customer service if you have any questions.

I would also recommend our RnA ReSet Drops®, which provide an unmeasurable and unique life force to the body that allows it to heal and thrive. The best way to demonstrate this is for you to watch the RnA ReSet Webinar which contains The Radish Experiment at the 18:26 minute mark. Dosage: Work up to 15 drops twice a day, build up your dosage according to the label directions.

Let me sign off this blog with the following sobering report. GrassrootsHealth released the following information. “Health Loss from Brain Disorders Now Surpasses Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer.”

A recent Neurology Reviews article on MDedge titled “Global burden of brain disorders surpasses cardiovascular disease and cancer” highlighted findings from the latest analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. They found that brain disorders, which include mental illness, neurologic conditions, and stroke, now account for more than 15% of all health loss worldwide – a number that now surpasses that from either cardiovascular disease or cancer.

This month we have shared much research on how getting enough vitamin D, omega-3s, B  vitamins, magnesium, and other nutrients can help protect brain health, as can managing levels of inflammation and blood sugar.

You can search for more relevant information at the following website: www.grassrootshealth.net.