The Spark of Life

Magnesium, that is.

I had tried it before, for constipation.  For a couple of years in fact, I took large amounts of it regularly.  But those cheap magnesium oxide pills caused chronic edema in my shins.  I had also tried drinking tons of water daily.  But as many "close but not quite" attempts go, I didn't have the right combination.  I was taking the wrong form of magnesium -the least absorbable form- and I didn't regularly combine that with large amounts of water, but instead tried my "drink lots of water" solution on a separate attempt, years later.  

It's funny how close you can be to an actual solution to a pressing problem, and yet not quite get it... and give up.  I've been suffering from chronic constipation for 13 years!

Over the years... I saw doctors, had procedures to investigate things, had blood tests (nothing was ever found as the reason).  I changed my diet, took prescriptions that were later deemed unsafe and taken off the market, did cleanses, did food trials to identify offending foods, cut out some food groups, tried supplements, tried dowsing myself in water daily, cut out more food groups, suffered with laxative cramping all night (losing more sleep), and eventually switched over to enemas for the quick and easy solution.  The problem was... even THAT caused more problems over the long run.  And this time, it was beginning to get VERY serious - blood & heart problems!  Just like the all the other solutions that only addressed symptoms, enemas also caused an unwanted side effect.  The sodium in the them caused a worsening electrolyte imbalance that in turn caused my heart to flutter increasingly over a couple of years.  Spaceman and I secretly had it checked out (and I have the bills to prove it), but nothing was found.  I was given a clean bill of health.  Looking back, it was a blessing they didn't put me on any prescriptions.  It turns out, it was an electrolyte imbalance, lack of magnesium and excess sodium - two of the 4 basic electrolytes every body needs.  And those prescriptions they might have prescribed? ...they exacerbate magnesium deficiency.  

Thinking back to when I was taking lots of magnesium oxide and still not solving that particular electrolyte imbalance, I now know the oxide form can't really help much because it only has a 4% absorption rate.  96% is unabsorbable!  That means for every 250 mg, only 10 mg of magnesium makes it into the system.  And even though I was often taking 1200 mg daily (an amount I was told was safe because of magnesium's fail-safe laxative effect), only 50 mg could be absorbed.  A body simply cannot get enough magnesium from the oxide form due to it's poor absorption rate. That's ridiculous to only absorb 50 out of 1200 mg!.  But back then I didn't know I was magnesium deficient. I didn't know that was the core of my problem.  I was just using it for the laxative effect.  Had I known about the poor absorption rate, I still probably wouldn't have actually cared.  All I wanted was the laxative effect!  It was short sighted.  But you only know what you know, when you finally learn it.  And I have learned a LOT about magnesium lately. 

It took another attempt at changing my diet recently and "cheating" with some Chinese food before I put together the connection between sodium and my heart palpitations.  From there the answer was only a google search away: I ran across a conversation between a guy with the same issue as me who received a reply from someone touting Dr. Carolyn Dean's Magnesium Miracle.

As I sat and listened to an interview with her, I could not believe how many LIFE LONG symptoms of magnesium deficiency I have had and never once assumed they were related.

• SAD (seasonal affective disorder)
• very frequently cold
• low blood pressure
• thinning hair
• subclinical hypothyroidism that no allopathic doctor would treat
• eczema on ankles, knees and elbows... and for a time, eyelids
• brittle bones (I was told as a child by a doctor that a stress fracture in my heel was from my muscles tearing it apart - I was a tomboy)
• calcium deposits on the sides of my feet
• teeth prone to cavities and crumbling even though I have had excellent oral habits for years and years
• edema during pregnancies and again later in life (this time not pregnant)
• unexplained high cholestorol for a period of time
• persistent and annoying eye twitches several times a day
• heart palpitations
• blood clots behind knees and eventually in the corotid artery as picked up in a thermography scan
• and of course... that ever-so-troubling chronic constipation!
• There's more, I'm sure.  I'm going from memory as I don't have my list in front of me.

The thing is, there are absolutely TONS of other conditions I don't have that are also caused by a magnesium deficiency, including many opposite seeming conditions such as high blood pressure, variations of thyroidism, and outright heart disease.  What I've learned is, simply:

Magnesium is the spark of life, responsible for over 700 bodily functions, truly a fundamental electrolyte.  

Magnesium is the gatekeeper of cells (it also relaxes muscles) keeping calcium (a tightener of muscles) from entering cells until a contraction is needed.  Without the magnesium barrier, calcium-based disorders and disease occurs, including vascular calcification (sticky blood, high blood pressure, calcified arteries, involuntary muscle spasms and even eventually heart attacks).  Any electrolyte imbalance, endured long enough, can cause issues in the body, frequently vascular and heart-related.  I was having increasing issues that were blood and heart related.  My electrolytes were out of balance: magnesium (too little), sodium & calcium (too much) and potassium (not sure, probably just about right).

The magnesium-calcium balance is super important.  Our city water is one of the WORST in the area as far as "hard water" goes.  Hard water means calcium build up in house pipes and body as well!  Ever hear of calcified pineal gland?  Yeah, that too.  But if calcium is abundant in city water and dairy that is pushed at us by corporate interests, what about magnesium?

Magnesium USED to be abundant in food.  But - and here is the clincher - Floroide binds with magnesium making it unavailable not just to us, but to ALL LIFE FORMS. And guess what contains flouride?  You'll be surprised (or not):

Besides most city water supplies... it's found in chemical insecticides and fertilizers!  In the past 100 years or so, with the advent of industrial monoculture agriculture and chemical insecticides and fertilizers, fluoride is sprayed on plants AND SOIL alike.  The plants can no longer absorb the mineral magnesium from the soil because the fluoride binds it up!  Now even if you stop using the chemicals the soil's magnesium content is all bound up by fluoride!  How did the magnesium get there to begin with: Ice age glaciers.  They scraped the rocks and broke them down into the minerals our bodies use and need.  So even if you eat a plant-based diet.... even if you eat an organic plant-based diet and avoid fluoride (hard to do but can be reduced), your plant food does not contain nearly as much magnesium as it did 100 years ago.  In this case, one cannot simply eat a well balanced diet and get well.  It's truly a sad situation we find ourselves in these days.

Not only are we not getting enough in our food, the very prescriptions we take to manage many of these magnesium deficient conditions (which doctors will never admit to because they aren't taught nutrition and would rather placate with pills).. many of these prescriptions also contain... you may have guessed it: fluoride!  Check the inserts.

So how to balance the magnesium and calcium in your body?  First, you must ingest more magnesium.  And if you are prone to that laxitive effect or need more magnesium than you can tolerate laxitive-effect-wise... Dr. Dean eventually broke down and hired scientists to make a better magnesium, one that is highly absorbable.  I'm now taking that (approx. $30/mo) and another formula for thyroid support - because I feel I need that, too.  Other than that, I add a pinch of sea salt (the kind I use contains 50+ trace minerals) to my drinking water and I drink 64-80 oz of water each day (half my weight in lbs, in ounces of water).  Please beware: you cannot do this with table salt - it contains NO minerals and is a lab created pure chemical sodium (very bad!). And of course, I stopped the enemas 3-4 weeks ago.  Oh yeah, we also now have a water filter that filters out fluoride - LOVE IT!

It was hard at first (pun intended! haha).  For the first week or so, I did not have a bowel movement at all.  This, even though I was taking 1000+ mg of magnesium oxide daily, in addition to taking Dr. Dean's ReMag.  I was also  drinking coconut water and drinking all my water daily... it just wasn't happening at first.  And that's to be expected when recovering from enema abuse.  But because of Dr. Dean's ReMag, much greater amounts of magnesium were finally being absorbed by my body and my sodium levels were evening out, too.  So the first thing I noticed was the heart palpitations subsiding.  That was week one.  By week two, I was having occasional bowel movements again. Whew!  And now... man! You would not think I EVER had chronic constipation!!!

Let me tell you how good it is!  I go, multiple times a day.  Yeah wonderful lol.  Sorry for the TMI.  Aren't we past that yet anyway? ;) But sometimes I have even been too busy and NOT drank all my water, which also means I didn't take all my minerals since they are mixed into my water.  Still, I have my frequent bowel movements the next day.  And Sunday at the wake I did the unthinkable: I purposefully AND JOYFULLY ate a thick slice of chocolate dessert bread!!!!!  And... I still pooped the next day no problemo!

So...

I'm getting a bit giddy here.  I realize I still have leaky gut, so I better keep this "in check" but I am thinking I will not have to stay away from all grains for the entire rest of my life.  It's so freaking liberating!

Sunday at the grocery, as I walked past the breakfast foods, I found myself staring at the oatmeal selections.  Oh my gawd, if I could only eat simple oatmeal for breakfast again!! :)  So, after reading label after label I settled on a brand that was one ingredient (to limit cross-reactions) and bought it.  It's now sitting in my cabinet waiting for me to eliminate all allergens for a few days - let my face clear up (I ate rice cakes the other day too which break me out due to leaky gut) - and then I will EAT OATMEAL FOR BREAKFAST.  This is amazing to me.  I'm just insanely curious at this point.  Do I only have leaky gut to deal with (skin breakouts or cellular bloating) or will I still induce slower motility by eating grains????

I cannot wait to find out!