Magnesium IV Causing Paradoxical Reaction??

I have been having PACs daily off and on 24/7 for well over a month. My nutritionist says that my gut is inflammed and not absorbing enough of the 600 mg of magnesium glycinate I take orally, causing my PACs and low ATP. Over the past three weeks, I have been rubbing 200 mgs of magnesium chloride oil on my body (100 mg before breakfast and 100 mgs at bedtime) and have been taking epson salt (magnesium sulfate) baths using 2 cups of ES every other night. These topical methods have definitely helped reduce and soften the PACs, but even so, the PACs were wearing me out, so I wanted to do more. I added drinking Waller Water (WW) for the past week, and that has helped me reach bowel tolerance, but the PACs continued. I know it takes time for magnesium to build up in the tissue, so I wanted to do all I could to facilitate this.

On Thursday, I was finally able to go to an integrative medicine doctor to get a 3 mg magnesium sulfate + Myer's cocktail combo IV. It has helped the PACs (though they aren't gone), but I have had a paradoxical reaction and am wondering if anyone else has had anything similar. It has affected my sleep. My ususal sleep time of 5 to 6 hours a night was cut down to 2 1/2 hrs. both Thursday and Friday nights. I went to bed at 10:15PM both nights but didn't fall asleep until around midnight. Then I awakened at around 2:30AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I read on PaleoHacks.com that too much magnesium or magnesium taken too close to bedtime can cause some people to have insomnia. Perhaps 3g of magnesium at once was just too much for me. My body is extremely sensitive to all chemicals, the good and the bad.

On top of that, the magnesium seems to have made my GERD worse. My lower esophageal sphincter muscle doesn't close properly, so I get constant burning in my esophagus, throat, and tongue. The magnesium seems be relaxing this LES muscle, aggravating the condition.

This has become a problem as I want to get more magnesium IVs, but I don't want the insomnia or LES problems that are coming with it.

Would love to know if anyone else has been adversely affected by too much magnesium or magnesium taken too close to bedtime?

I know we are "all an experiment of one", but perhaps someone else has some experience with this.

Thanks much.
Windstar (Nancy M)

Hi Nancy,

You may not need as much Mag as you are taking in right now. With your program of Epson Salt baths, topical Mag and oral Mag and now adding in 3 grams of IV Mag you could have temporarily exceeded your needs of IC Mag.

When you woke early did you wake quickly like with a start or startled feeling? Did you have trouble getting back to sleep or possibly have some intense dreams or nightmares prior to waking and did you feel a little antsy or anxious when awake in the early morning?

If so, these could possibly be a sign that too much Magnesium helped boost your nocturnal production of the powerful hormone Melatonin. If this happened it could very well have further suppressed and already low nocturnal cortisol level which, in turn, could then easily cause a short term hypoglycemia dip from a sudden cortisol deficiency leading to low blood sugar. Without enough cortisol on demand at the moment to keep your glucose level in a good range while under the suppressive effect of a too high Melatonin level, that then can trigger an adrenaline spike in an effort to substitute for the missing cortisol needed to raise your blood sugar (something adrenaline doesn't do nearly as efficiently as cortisol) and that resulting hypoglycemia in combination with a resulting adrenaline spike will lead to the early walking and difficulty getting back to sleep.

BTW, are you taking Melatonin at night before sleep? That is very often a good thing, but you have to be careful of the dose and form ( sub-linqual is MUCH better than oral melatonin). If person has a melatonin deficiency and low night time cortisol production too they can feel better and sleep deeply for awhile on a strong dose of sub-linqual melatonin such as 1mg to 3mg for a period of time. But as your melatonin levels increase you will have to dramatically lower the dose of Melatonin to avoid the kind of early morning waking and possible anxious startled awaking and difficulty getting back to sleep. For those who know this outcome when taking Melatonin, try getting oral sub-lingual drops and titrate it down to take only about 0.25mg to 0.10mg a night sub-lingual. That will be enough for most people with low adrenal output and will avoid further crashing your endogenous cortisol and leaving you feeling wiped out tired and sluggish in the mornings. Better yet get a good sub-linqual suspension of liquid Melatonin from a good compounding pharmacy as that works the best.

In any event, try using only 1.5 grams of Mag sulfate by itself for the next couple infusions and have the Doc or nurse take your BP before, in the middle of and at the end of your Magnesium infusion. If it is dropping too low (below 105/65) then back off further on the Magnesium if you also have two bowel movements a day that are well formed but not too hard with both being strong indicators you could well have enough Mag on board at that time. Too low BP is also very often a strong signal .. almost diagnostic ... of too low adrenal output as well, and excess magnesium isn't what you want in the absence of properly treated cortisol deficiency if you should confirm the two conditions co-existing. You very much still need sufficient magnesium repletion but you will have less tolerance for excess mag in the face of too low cortisol production.

On a different but related note, do NOT use your PAC frequency or intensity as a measure alone that tells you to take more Magnesium . You very much do need a solid IC level of magnesium for a quiet heart and it is a key requirement, but that is to provide a foundation for safely taking enough Potassium to really do the trick in calming PACs/PVCs. The Potassium is the star QB here in this equation, the Magnesium is the critical offensive line blocking for the Potassium and allowing it to work without going pro-arrhythmic. No potassium QB is ever going to make it to the playoffs without a stout offensive line giving it the conditions under which it can excel in keeping the heart quiet.

Use the bowel tolerance test to better control your Magnesium intake needs and do a few Exatests too to get an idea of where you stand at certain dosing levels and types of Magnesium and then after you've done a few and have a good idea of how you respond, you can go pretty much by bowel tolerance and 'feel' from then on. But don't use the frequency or intensity of PACs as a guide for magnesium dosing alone.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2013 10:57PM by Shannon.

Shannon,

This discussion is really interesting. My blood pressure has always been a bit high but lately I have developed low blood pressure and I have suspected that I have low adrenal output for some time. I just retired from a very stressful job and I have not been able to sleep well for a long time. Melatonin seems to give me vivid frightening dreams and hasn't helped much. A very very small dose of OTC Unisom (an antihistamine) works very well but gives me a morning hangover.

I am really trying to get healthy. I am always very tired and unmotivated but no doctor can ever find a reason. From what you are saying I might need to decrease Mg. a little bit and try the melatonin again. My husband is the afibber (I have plenty of my own health issues). I take most of the supplements that are advised here because they all make sense for good health.
We supplement with Mg, K, fish oil, and D. In addition he take l-arginine and ashwandha.

Thanks for your contribution to this board. I always read your posts with interest.

Debbie

The B vitamins in a Myers cocktail can be activating.

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

Nancy - once you have an optimized magnesium IC level, then potassium...is going to be the stabilizer of the PAC activity. Try to get it mainly from food but as many of us have found, we need to supplement as well. I use a variety of supplemental potassium forms... including the gluconate powder, potassium citrate and potassium bicarbonate. The powder is great for home use but for portability, the capsules are handy and readily available if you eat out to offset sodium from restaurant food.

Also, if I can find it, I have something to post on the open LES that may be helpful..... I'm just on overload at the moment but will try to locate that nugget and post it.

Jackie

For what it's worth, I've had paradoxical reactions from magnesium oil applied to the skin. It's directly absorbed and can be quite powerful. One spray is enough for me!

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

Thanks so much for everyone's help. My sleep has gradually returned to normal over the past three nights. Last night I got 6 hrs. sleep. However, my LES laxness continues to be a problem, and my burning is much worse than normal.

Shannon, I did not wake up startled, but definitely was awake and not able to get back to sleep. If anything, my cortisol is too high at night, not too low. I do take 1 mg sublingual Superior Source melatonin, and it has worked for me for many months. No other brand has ever worked. As to the Exatest, the closest doctor who gives the test is 250 miles away; plus, my insurance does not cover the test, so I am relying on my nutritionist who does Autonomic Response Testing to tell me if magnesium is getting into my cells. When I have taken 500 mg of potassium powder in the past on a daily basis, my HR gets low and I feel light-headed. My potassium level on blood tests for the past five years has shown that it is between 4.6 and 4.7 without supplementing, so I think I am getting enough from my food. I think my PACs are being caused by poor digestion. Dr. Russell Blaylock just wrote about this in his recent newsletter. I will put that info. in a new topic post.

Iatrogenia, I do get overactivated by B vitamins. One doctor had me taking them and I had to stop because they made me agitated and hyper, so maybe that was the cause???

Jackie, I do take the potassium pills when I got out to eat (which is rare); however, I am more and more convinced that the PACs are from my bad digestion. I've noticed that when my stomach is really hurting that my heart beats get much more irregular. For the last two days I've tried chewing 2 DGLs 20 minutes before each meal and got intense burning. I also tried the digestive enzymes that my previous doctor had me taking, and they caused intense burning too, so I stopped both of these today. Even drinking water burns. I read that when the LES is weak and not working properly, one must only drink sips of water and it should be heated. I'm doing that now, but it isn't helping much. So if you can find that info on the LES, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm even thinking of seeing a gastroenterologist as this digestive situation has gone on far too long. Do you know if they normally test HCl levels?

Windstar (Nancy M)

Yes, I would suspect the B vitamins.

Just spoke to a sleep doctor. I have a cortisol surge that disturbs my sleep from about 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. (cortisol normally peaks about this time). He suggested loading complex carbs before bedtime. (This keeps blood sugar higher throughout the night; low blood sugar stimulates adrenaline production.)

I did this last night, it seemed to work.

______________
Lone paroxysmal vagal atrial fibrillation. Age 62, female, no risk factors. Autonomic instability since severe Paxil withdrawal in 2004, including extreme sensitivity to neuro-active drugs, supplements, foods. Monthly tachycardia started 1/11, happened only at night, during sleep, or when waking, bouts of 5-15 hours. Changed to afib about a year ago, same pattern. Frequency increased over last 6 months, apparently with sensitivity to more triggers. Ablation 6/27/13 by Steven Hao.

Nancy - sorry - I'm still on overload here and haven't pulled out the LES info.... but on the B vitamins... many people find they irritate their stomachs. If you aren't taking with food, consider that. always take befor enoon as B's can be just way too stimulating for some. ...Now that you have stopped the B's you may find some relief. If you re-introduce, do it very slowly. Some B complexes are better than others.

Be cautious with the carb load at night. If it works for you..great... but that typically causes an imbalance or rebound from too much insulin production which then lowers your glucose too much and you'll get the adrenaline surge as a result. If anything, you should have a small protein and fat snack a couple hours prior to bed. Typically when you wake up in the wee hours, it's because you are hypoglycemic and the resulting adrenaline surge (intended to protect the brain and make you wake up and eat something) causes a lot of stimulation and often AF. That was my problem when I started my AF journey and it took a holistic MD who also was hypoglycemic to sort it out for me. It worked and I reversed the hypoglycemia.

I'll try to get back to you soon on the LES.... it may not be as useful as I remember thinking it was when I heard it.

Jackie

Iatrogenia,

I bought a book suggested by Jackie. It's called The Mood Cure by Julia Ross. Ross has a clinic in northern CA. After reading her book, I phoned her clinic and ordered a 24 hr. cortisol saliva test that tests cortisol 5 times. The test revealed that I, too, had very high cortisol at 2:30AM. I paid for a consult with one of her clinicians who told me to take Seriphos, a special form of phosphorylated serine, which is an adaptogen. I bought it either from iHerb or Vitacost.com (can't remember which) but it wasn't expensive. I took 3 capsules at 9PM every night for 6 weeks, and that made a major difference in my sleep. I was waking up between 2 and 3AM and not getting back to sleep. Now I usually wake up at 4:30AM and get between 5 and 6 hrs. sleep a night. I was able to read her chapter on sleep (Chapter 12) online before the book arrived, so you should be able to google it and read it too; however, the entire book is worth having, so I would suggest ordering it from Amazon. Ross warns not to take Seriphos too long--she says to take a break after a month. You don't want to bring your cortisol down too low. Then resume for another month if you need to.

I also eat a snack at 9:30 every night. I have one piece of rice bread toasted with almond butter, and really pour on the almond butter. I've read it's important to have a snack that has a balance of carb, protein, and fat, not just complex carb.

Blessings to you,
Windstar (Nancy M)

Nancy - I'm so pleased you found help with Julia Ross. Her book is designed as a Self-Help or DIY manual and when I first heard her speak several years ago, she said she had feedback from over 100,000 people who used her DIY instructions and were helped out of their problems. She is well-known in the Functional Medicine circles.

Jackie

Jackie,

What are some examples of good protein and fat snacks before bed? I thought the almond butter would provide the protein and fat, and rice toast is easy to digest and doesn't cause my stomach distress, though I know it is a carb.

I wanted to eat Greek yogurt before bed, but my nutritionist says my body doesn't like that--not sure why--but it contains carbs too. I know cheese and most daily contains casein (sp) which is an excitotoxin, and Blaylock says it is high in glutamate, which inflames the brain. Between my limited diet due to my stomach inflammation and now I am sensitive to the latex foods, it's hard to know what to eat these days!!

Thanks much,
Nancy M

Hi Nancy I have had a second ablation that seems to be working, but I am scared stiff of stomach issues that have always been a trigger. MY EP prescribed a proton pump inhibitor - Nexium - for thirty days after the ablation. I did not follow his instructions fully following the first ablation and had stomach issues and relapsed. Following the second ablation I am reluctantly taking the Nexium for at least 30 days.

When I got back in the hands of my functional MD, she has given me a protocol which has been 100% effective in her clinic in weaning from these drugs.

Here it is:

In the morning put 10 drops of marshmallow root extract in a glass of water and drink it.
Also, drink a cup of ginger tea, made from root and steeped for ten minutes.
Remove the Nexium after two weeks.

On the advice of other afibbers I had already started consuming ginger root by capsule three times per day.
I have already weaned down to 1/3 tab of Nexium and my stomach upset has not returned.

The other thing I have found to be mandatory is to eat nothing after dinner. And dinner needs to be not eaten late. It needs to be easy to digest well chewed food. I do not eat red meat at dinner any more, and I take a digestive enzyme with dinner.

I often had a feeling in my stomach in the evening or the middle of the night which I read as a hunger signal, and so would satisfy it with a bowl of cereal or piece of toast, or some left overs. I am sure this did nothing but exasperate the problem. I found there was no need to fullfil this hunger sensation with food, and I would not wither away and die if I do not eat in the middle of the night.

I believe one of the main upsetting culprits for indigestion is the handful of supplements taken late in the day. I was dividing my doses up, and taking the second last batch at dinner and then one more handful at bed time. I now take next to nothing with my evening meal, and never, ever anything late or at bed time.

What we need to realize is that an ablation fixes the symptoms, but does not cure the underlying pathology.

I am a work in progress, but so far so good.
Ron

Ron - that's very well said...especially about the core pathology. Thanks for posting your protocol.

I'm so glad you are making progress. It's been a long haul for you.

Best to you,
Jackie

RonB,

Thanks for your help on the digestion upset. Yesterday I bought and tried Jarrow D-limonene 1000 mg at dinner. It is supposed to help GERD and to strengthen the LES muscle. I did get some burning from taking it, about a 2 out of 5 intensity in my stomach, esophagus, throat, and tongue. But I have had burning of these areas all day long, every day, for months now, so it wasn't much worse than what's normal for me. This morning I had loose stools, which I think is a result of the d-limonene. The directions say to take the d-limonene every other day for 20 days. In researching it, I read 97 reviews on the iHerb website from people who have tried it and most found success with it. The Jarrow brand is only "food strength". Life Extension brand makes one that is 98.5% d-limonene, and that percentage is referenced in studies done on it. However, I wanted to try it immediately so I phoned all of our health food stores within 30 miles and could only find the Jarrow brand. I decided to use it rather than wait for an iHerb order to arrive. So we'll see how it goes.

As to not eating a bedtime snack, I have terrible insomnia and need a snack, so I eat some rice toast and almond butter at 9:30 and go to bed at 10:15. The head of my bed is raised 7 inches, and I don't seem to have a problem with GERD at night. It's during the day that I have a problem, and that is not with reflux but rather with gas that comes up from my open LES. The snack has worked well for me up til two nights ago. I woke up at 2AM that night and last night I woke up at 3AM and couldn't get back to sleep either night. I think Jackie would say that I have hypoglycemia because I was hungry both times. I got up and had some yogurt at 4AM and went back to bed but couldn't get back to sleep. I have just finished tapering off my sleeping med four nights ago, so this may be some kind of insomnia rebound.

Nancy M