Is Magnesium Causing My Fast Pulse During The Night?

I've used Magnesium - mostly Dr's Best Glycinate Chelate - for a long time and received noticeable benefits. I had to increase the amount very, very, slowly (bowel intolerance) and recently reached 750mg.

But I've also recently started getting a lot of spells of fast beats during the night - pulse rising to around 80. These have been waking me up to five times a night. This once led to an Afib episode and a number of times would done had I not reduced the rate with the twisting stretch. ( More on an unexpected side effect of that manoeuvre later).

Yesterday I decided I would use an extra 100mg Magnesium and 270mg Potassium before bedtime to calm the heart. (I normally supplement with about 600mg Potassium Gluconate per day). However shortly before bedtime I decided to do a Search on the main causes of my problem. I looked at numerous sites and there was general agreement that the main cause of fast beats during the night is Low Blood Pressure.

My resting blood pressure during the day is around 95 over around 60 - 65. Obviously as my pulse drops form low 60's during the day to the 50's during the night my blood pressure must also drop.

Good as Magnesium and Potassium are both reduce blood pressure. I changed my mind about taking extra before bed and today I'm starting reducing Magnesium by 50mg a day and Potassium a little too to see if it helps.

Also during last nights five times waking with fast beats instead of reducing my breathing to increase CO2 I breathed a little faster to raise blood
pressure. It definitely helped in that I didn't have to use the twisting stretch to restore normal pulse.

I should say that I've been using high Vitamin C (which also lowers blood pressure) and Lycine (The Dr Linus Pauling Protocol) for angina which my GP and Cardiologist insisted I had. (I knew all along it wasn't my heart causing my chest pain but decided to take no chances and use the Protocol. A stress test with a different and very good cardiologist last week showed I as right. The problem is very likely Costochondritis - ironically I suspect the cause of this is the stress on the costal cartilages caused by frequent use of the twisting stretch. Sometimes you just can't win!). I'm not particularly blaming Vit C at the moment as I've been steadily reducing the amount I take for the past nine days.

If anyone has any thoughts on any of this post and on how to increase low blood pressure - something i've been looking into for a long time and have been using acupressure points for (no real success with that) - I'd be grateful.

Thanks

Sam

PS If anyone hasn't seen my recent post and can direct me to posts by a member who claimed he stopped his Afib by applying anti-inflammatory gel to the mid thoracic area I'd appreciate that too.

Hi Sam - Typically, magnesium lowers heart rate. I sounds as if you are experiencing short runs of a preliminary afib which doesn’t actually develop into a full-blown event.

Keep in mind, also, that the costrochronditis/inflammatory situation helps deplete magnesium… and that it’s likely that contributes to vagus nerve irritation so symptoms would be logical. I think you were intuitive when you asked in your first post about topical magnesium. It certainly would not hurt to use it. Transdermal application of magnesium helps significantly lessen pain from overused or distorted, painful tissue and muscles quickly and effectively.

Hope you improve quickly.

Jackie

Thanks Jackie, but I am convinced the problem is low blood pressure. I had an improved night last night by reducing magnesium by 150 mg and also reduced Vitamn C.

I've had low blood pressure for a long time and even finished up in hospital once when it dropped to 60/40 after using metropolol with flecainide. I've never been able to find a way to increase blood pressure.

Sam

Sam - Knowing our own body's response is the best possible solution so good that you recognize your connection.

Some individuals find adding sodium increases blood pressure.

Note this report indicates dehydration causes low blood pressure.

Dehydration can cause low blood pressure. This can be easily treated by increasing your fluid and salt intake. Ensuring you drink enough fluid will help by increasing the volume of your blood, which increases your blood pressure.

If you have low blood pressure, you may benefit from having more salt in your diet. Your GP can advise how much additional salt you need and whether you can add salt to your usual food or take salt tablets. Don't add extra salt to your diet without seeing your GP first. [www.nhs.uk]

Jackie

SaM,

I Would definitely go easy on the oral magnesium with normal systolic BP below 100 as you show, and with lowish dystolic BP too. So often that scenario also entire dysfunctional adrenal hormone performance, be that low cortisol low aldosterone or both. At least during periods of low BP... Feeling faint when standing up too quickly not infrequently is another hallmark of under responsive cortisol/aldosterone.

In any event, people who suffer from underperforming adrenal often crave salt as the wisdom of their bodies telling them to take more is shouting at you! Not everyone should go low sodium at all.

The key is maintaining a heart and body healthy ratio of potassium to sodium ... not just pushing for extremely low sodium levels for everyone or even the majority.

I know there are many compelling sounding theories based on dramatically lowering one or two special biochemicals/ hormones to create a desired effect and improve health.. Most of these protocols and beliefs often do create dramatic changes in blood.urine numbers, sometime creating almost cult like followings of a given theory of biochemistries and very often t hose that follow a strict version of even some of the more extreme theories can dramatically help correct an overabundance ( or under abundance in some cases) of the given target so-called 'gremlin' hormone or biochemical that these philosophies have identified as the golden key to health.

Most of natures endogenous hormones and biochemical are far from being inherent gremlins or bad actors. All of them serve important functions in a complex dance of balance with ebb and flow.

What I have learned is that the body is a complex symphony of biochemical interactions, and too great a focus on one or two, while often truly creating a major body composition change and often for the better ... often too in the long run lead to other imbalances that are not necessarily compatible with high quality long life.

Some single target theories may indicate an overall theoretical life span advantage from focusing on this one aspect of human biochemistry, usually from some combination of selected studies, but in the long run, avoiding extremes seems the best bet for a quality life experience, regardless of how many ticks on the clock we all might get.

And magnesium is another example that while we have shown conclusively here that insuring proper repletion can truly help quiet most people hearts to one degree or another and offers many health benefits to those that are truly low in IC mag levels. And a true cure for AFIB via magnesium would qualify as a true 'outlier' in our experience for sure.

By the same token the experiment of one thing is paramount to understand as while some folks like George at one point required a boat load of magnesium intake a day, someone else might need only 200mg a day of oral mag to top off the tank and suggesting taking large doses for everyone can and will often crater ones BP and at times create gastric impaired motility with too fast a transit time leading, to a host of key nutrient deficiencies including what amounts, ironically, to a magnesium-induced magnesium deficiency.

I caution everyone with BP under 100 systolic and under 60 systolic to be very careful adding any extra magnesium to the party. Start with small doses and pay attention to gastric motility transit times with certain goods like corn, beets and even powdered edible charcoal, that can easily be identified when it comes out in the stool.

Time the intake to the first sign of exist and if it is quicker that around ... in fact, check on a new thread in a few minutes and I will start a new thread and post the article rom Dr Jonathan Wright world renowned integrative MD natural medicine expert on this issue of "Are You Getting too much of a Good Thing .. in Magnesium' that gives guidelines for recognizing and doing motility transit testing to confirm if perhaps you need less rather than more magnesium .

And Sam this issue can be a factor whether or not low BP driven by too much magnesium is an issue for you or not.

Hope this helps .. look for the thread shortly on the main forum.

Shannon

Thanks, Folks.

Jackie: Yes I've always been careful about full hydration. When I started with Afib I was getting short runs daily until I read Dr Batmaghelidj writings and started drinking four pints of water a day. That was the main factor on improving (apart from a bad spell just over a year ago which turned out to be caused by taking Metoprolol before Flecainide to revert) from those daily runs to an average of around once a year since.

Shannon: I started a few days ago to reduce Magnesium and have so far dropped from 750 mg to 600 mg. I keep going very slowly because Magnesium was the second most important factor in greatly reducing my episodes. I certainly appreciated the point you made here and look forward to reading your new post on the subject.

Thanks again

Sam

You are welcome Sam,

And yes, Magnesium repletion is a significant benefit in so many ways beyond just helping to quiet the heart, in a significant majority of Afibbers. But it's important too to understand the generally broad 'U-shaped' curve defining optimal ranges where either end of the curve with either too little or too much of a good thing can have negative consequences, with most key biochemicals and hormones, and it's not so rare to find some people that simply cant tolerate larger doses of oral mag especially.

As Jackie noted, try adding some topical magnesium in place of some part of the oral and see if that doesn't help. However, with regard to low BP, going topical will still have a direct impact to some degree on BP too for most people, and as I noted above its possible that the main contribution to your low BP could involve adrenal dysfunction to some degree especially if your losing BP was common prior to you starting magnesium supplementation.

Also Sam, my references to being careful about single nutrient repletion protocols is mostly from some of the more fringe theories and proponents I have seen at various integrative and BHRT conferences in the past that have locked onto one or two endogenous biochemicals as the key to good health when the reality is rarely so simple and basic as that in my experience.

There are some very good insights and programs that start with a central focus on a key endocrine function like the pancreas (insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome diabetes) or andrenal (cortisol, aldosterone, adrenaline) and thyroid (T3 and T4 function) etc. and then clearly flesh it all out with more nuance and inclusiveness of how the given focus interacts with the whole symphony. It's mostly the more extreme radical positions I wanted to highlight to take with a grain of salt (literally in some cases .

Best wishes,
Shannon



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2016 08:14PM by Shannon.

Magnesium now down to 550. Still being awakened by fast beats. Starting to wonder a little if my heart is missing Lugol's Iodine. (see new post)

Sam/Jackie/Shannon,

Is being awakened by short runs a known afib issue? Jackie described this perfectly " I(t) sounds as if you are experiencing short runs of a preliminary afib which doesn’t actually develop into a full-blown event."

I've awake about 2-4x a month now (today is one of them) with exactly this feeling. I've surmised it's because I've eaten food past 7pm and the digestion of it is messing with my afib, but if this is a known issue, I am open to hearing what others have done to solve this issue. If I could resolve this issue, I would afib almost 100% at bay (right now).

Any info on this would be greatly appreciated!

-Eric

Eric - there are a number of factors you could assess.

When you have a series of short beats, that often indicates low potassium levels which shortens the refractory period which is the time between beats.

Another factor can be that what you eat at 7 pm may cause your blood glucose (sugar) to drop significantly and cause a series of skipped beats or outright arrhythmia. Or... it can be something that causes the digestive issue you mention... and may be eliminated by using a digestive enzyme with meals so you don't experience that disturbance. I need to know more before I can comment more.... like typical meal content, alcohol consumption, sugar consumption, lots of starchy carbs? etc. Some people are highly reactive to gluten and find that going totally gluten free eliminates digestive issues and the accompanying inflammation. Others are highly reactive to dairy... or both.

Addressing the core electrolytes that help support normal rhythm is critical. If you haven't investigated the many posts here on the importance of adding supplemental magnesium and potassium, that should be among the first of your reading assignment. You can use the search feature or start with the box at the top of the page titled Afib Resources. Several very relevant reports there... and then also just scan down through the topics in the Conference Room here: [www.afibbers.org]

Jackie

Eric - I should also have mentioned as a top priority to consider alkalizing with the homemade version of magnesium bicarbonate water used on a daily basis. Sorry. I wasn't yet awake, apparently. There are numerous posts on the importance of maintaining an alkaline tissue status. Here are some of the links and you can find many more with a search. If your system is extremely acidic, that contributes to numerous complications and nerve irritation. This form of magnesium is highly beneficial so it is added help for afibbers in that regard as well.

You'll see the reference to WW... aka Waller Water... which we named after the formulator of the homemade version of magnesium bicarbonate water which is a duplicate of the version of Unique Water patented by Dr. Russell Beckett.


Questions about WW
[www.afibbers.org]

Alkalinity, Healing, pH and Voltage - The Inside Story
[www.afibbers.org]

Beginning at the beginning to understand why this WW hoopla
[www.afibbers.org]

"Magnesium Bicarbonate - The Ultimate Mitochondrial Cocktail" [e.g. WW]
[www.afibbers.org]

Alkaline / acid, cell voltage, WW, AF
[www.afibbers.org]

WW cost. Also, magnesium cost, WW vs. tablets
[www.afibbers.org]

The science behind the importance of tissue alkalinity is presented in the book, "Healing is Voltage" by Jerry Tennant, MD, MD (H), MD (P) along with several others including "Alkalize or Die" by Dr. Theodore A Baroody and The pH Miracle by Robert O. Young, PhD.

The instructions for making your own magnesium bicarbonate water are found here: [www.afibbers.org]

Buy pH strips to test your first catch urine sample to determine where you stand with tissue pH.
This is one example. [www.carolina.com]

Jackie

Thanks for the great response.

I rarely eat gluten, dairy or sugar for dinner. A typical meal is chicken breast or salmon with veggies (corn/peas/carrots/etc) and a piece or two of fruit (often a banana, orange, or dried apricots).

I try and eat 800mg worth of potassium via nuts and fruits a day, and I supplement 300-400mg of magnesium a day. I often eat walnuts during the day to get mag naturally as well.

I have had stomach issues for years (because of gluten), and after stopping eating Fructans (for the most part) things have been better, but not perfect. It's when I am having indigestion during the night when I have lots of PACs at night. Of the 3-4 afibs I have had this year, all of them were when I was having an upset stomach in the middle of the night.

-Eric

Eric - You need to know that with gluten avoidance... it's strict and permanent if you have gluten sensitivity as found by testing. Gluten experts...such as Dr. Tom O'Bryan say that even an "atom" of gluten can set off a reaction and undo any heroic efforts to be strictly GF. So... if you can think back to recall if your digestive issues correlate with gluten exposure...or the dairy protein casein, then you may have a clue as to the upset.

Additionally, it's best to avoid fruit that have a high fructose content such as the banana, orange and especially dried fruit. While they have good potassium content, in a person with glucose handling issues (which you may have) high sugar fruit is to be avoided. This is because in many cases that excess sugar causes an over-production of insulin which then causes a rebound of blood glucose going too low. As a reaction to that, the body sends out an alert or cortisol/adrenaline response which can cause heart palpitations.

Another possibility is lack of sufficient vitamin B 12 (methylcobalamin) and zinc to help make natural stomach acid. Many people suffer from low production and are given acid blockers or PPIs which only make the situation worse and when there is bloating in the stomach from undigested foods, the result is irritation of the vagus nerve which often then causes palpitations and AF.

Another issue could be Candida albicans (yeast) overgrowth... sugar feeds the yeast; causes bloating and then the same issue with the vagus. You can test for that and it would be also smart to rule out H.pylori infection as well.
Gastric bug link to irregular heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation [www.medicalnewstoday.com]

You didn't mention,but I presume you are alcohol free? If not... many connections to that as well.

Lastly, consider using a digestive enzyme with every meal. When I had my digestive issues, I found that adding both the enzymes and a low dose of betaine hydrochloride worked wonders. Once I was able to make enough of my own stomach acid as a result of aggressive supplementing with B vitamins, B12 injections, and lots of zinc plus the alkaline water, that all went away ...never to return. I also gave up any possible exposure to gluten and still remain GF today.

I'm just offering some of the influences that can cause the digestive/AF disturbances that often occur at night. I had the typical hypoglycemic reaction in the wee hours of the morning until I was able to get blood glucose levels stable through diet and supplements, killing Candida and doing a detox cleanse.

Jackie

Jackie,

Fascinating stuff! Thanks! A couple of things and I promise I'll leave you alone

> Additionally, it's best to avoid fruit that have a high fructose content such as the banana, orange and especially dried fruit. While they have good potassium
> content, in a person with glucose handling issues (which you may have) high sugar fruit is to be avoided. This is because in many cases that excess sugar
> causes an over-production of insulin which then causes a rebound of blood glucose going too low. As a reaction to that, the body sends out an alert or
> cortisol/adrenaline response which can cause heart palpitations.

My glucose levels are great, but I see you may not be talking about "high sugar levels" like diabetes, but just how my body processes glucose in general. What would you suggest to replace the fruit (I am mostly eating it for the potassium).

> Another possibility is lack of sufficient vitamin B 12 (methylcobalamin) and zinc to help make natural stomach acid. Many people suffer from low production
> and are given acid blockers or PPIs which only make the situation worse and when there is bloating in the stomach from undigested foods, the result is
> irritation of the vagus nerve which often then causes palpitations and AF.

Interesting. I stopped taking B12 recently, because of some tainted supplements, and I used to eat oysters for zinc, but I've dropped off on that too. My EP also told me to take a zantac a day to help with my indigestion. Since the combo of taking zantac and not taking b12, I've had 2 episodes. I had about 2 episodes in the past 8 months before that.

I'll take the B complex vitamins again and figure out how to get some zinc.

Did you just discuss all this stuff with your GP? Or did you just figure it all out on your own? I wish I had a doctor as a Svengali to help me through all this.

Eric - Please continue to ask all the questions you like. It's through this type of exchange that we learn to sort out 'culprits' that contribute to various health issues that often go undetected unless you happen to be in the care of a functional medicine practitioner who does extensive testing to ferret out nutritional imbalances and other detrimental influences.

Good that your glucose level is "great"... Please share that number. Yes, I'm not talking about diabetes. A metabolic dysfunction or imbalance can occur that doesn't balance out properly the metabolism of fruit sugar... especially if the load is all at once and that's what causes the overproduction of Insulin etc... that I mentioned.

For potassium, most recommendations are to use vegetable sources instead...and for fruit, choose low glycemic load types to eat for other nutrition. That way, you don't get in trouble with glucose spikes. Check out this Oregon State list of potassium-containing foods... [lpi.oregonstate.edu]

One of the easiest sources of potassium is to juice yourself or buy an organic veggie juice such as Knudsen's low sodium. You can squeeze in some lemon or lime juice for taste variation if that's appealing. Avocados are loaded with potassium and are very healthy....again, adding lemon or lime juice. Also artichoke hearts, steamed, almonds, sunflower seeds.

Since you mention taking the Zantac, I'd be suspect that is the root of your problems. You can't destroy stomach acid production and expect to have a healthy body. It's a common problem that most doctor's don't recognize, unfortunately.

Very important: Work on the alkalinity emphasis I listed. That's a perfect way to assist your digestive process and also get some high-quality magnesium as well for your heart. Making the WW is easy and economical. I would never want to be without it.

On the B 12 supplement.... you need a B complex as well as extra B12, itself, and the form should be methylcobalamin
listed on the label. Other forms don't metabolize well. You can trust the Natural Factors brand for quality control and GMP standards... there are others as well, I just rely on Michael T. Murray, ND of Natural Factors to offer high quality products. [naturalfactors.com] At least 1,000 mg to start... you may need increase that to 4 or 5 a day to replete the B12 function. Zinc... use the Natural Factor's or similar Zinc Chelate...[naturalfactors.com] You may need to increase to 3 a day. (I take 80 mg a day for eye health as directed by the eye doctor.)

I have a degree in Applied Science and major in dental hygiene. Part of our studies included nutrition so we could assess and advise patients. Later on when I developed AF and a couple of other health issues not addressed well by my doctors, I found a Functional Medicine Board Certified Family Practice Physician and she helped me (by specific metabolic testing) to determine which nutrients were missing and why I had the symptoms I did. She allowed me to attend nutrition training classes and seminars for HC professionals which I did for about 8 years. I found many culprits that stimulated AF and helped eliminate, but unfortunately, I was not able to gain total control over the beast - thus, the Natale ablations. However, if I weren't taking Eliquis, I'd have nothing to list as drugs taken. I do have a length list of essential supplements, however.

Hope this helps. Feel free to continue the dialog. You can send me a PM if you like.

Be well,
Jackie

Thanks! Let me take some time to digest this and I'll probably follow up via PM!

-Eric