Magnesium Increase: Bradycardia?

Im almost 15 months post Natale flutter ablation & LAA isolation and 8 months post Dr Natale Watchman procedure. I did perfect til i brilliantly went back to scotch drinking in late July. During August i had some pvc s then very short tachy runs at 97-105. Then 10 days ago i had a 20 min tach at 97-105. So i stopped all alcohol immediately and zero anything since. I decided to up my mag intake via the bicarbonate, trace minerals ionic mag and my usual mag gly at night. Probably 800 total mgs. Maybe more? No intestinal distress but my RHR is 58-62 now. It was 64-68. At my Watchman in Austin 2/16 my post Covid RHR had zoomed to 75-82. Dr Natale said it was sinus and that it was due to the autanomic nervous system. They told me to ignore it to exercise get in the sun etc. i did and it corrected by April - May. Anyway is too much mag a bad idea? Is 57-62 too low?
Alcohol has been my no 1 trigger since day 1 in 2006

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Poppino
Anyway is too much mag a bad idea? Is 57-62 too low?
Alcohol has been my no 1 trigger since day 1 in 2006

I recall alcohol being an issue with you since you first came here...

I can't tell you whether your 800 mg mag intake is too much or 57-62 is too low for you. However, I take on the order of 3 grams (3000mg) +/- a day. My daytime resting heart rate is in the high 40's to low 50's. At night, my average is commonly mid 40's with a low in the high 30's to low 40's, without issue. Interestingly, the number #1 contributor to a higher average heart rate during sleep, for me, is eating something I'm sensitive to. The more the sensitivity the greater the increase. So an average of 50 BPM during sleep tells me I ate something that increased my sympathetic drive a bit. If my average is at 45, then I was really clean. Before I figured this out, I had an average of say 63 after getting an Oura (tracking) ring. My deep sleep was also 0-3 minutes a night, which I wasn't happy with. Then I found an read Dr. Arthur Coca's 1956 book that talked about his experiences using pulse testing to figure out food sensitivity. Essentially he suggested taking a full one minute pulse (I found an electronic instantaneous device pulse to not give as good a signal as a one minute average) before you ate then 30 and 60 minutes after. If the after rate was more than 6 BPM higher it indicated sensitivity. If you are eating a combined meal, then you have to go back at another time and eat things individually to figure out what the offending food is. In any case, I had non subtle increases like 15-25 BPM. When I got those out, my average sleeping pulse was 45 a couple months later, with no change in exercise. Deep sleep went to 30 to 90 minutes, a vast improvement. It is work to record everything, and even several years later is a work in progress for me. However now a high overnight rate is now 50 or 52 not 63.

Interesting George thankyou. I forgot : i do take 20 mg of propananol twice a day but always have. Im 69 but fit. I lift weights and walk an hour every evening. My walk routine use to be 1-2 times a week but since june i went to everyday. I feel fine. No fatigue etc but the lower rate caught my attention. Funny i always dreamt of a lower HR. Now i have it and am concerned lol

Heart rate can rise just by eating, or thinking, or fretting, or resting on the 'wrong' side in bed, from overtraining, from disease, from inoculation, from alcohol, from drugs, and even from listening to one's spouse describe a stressful event earlier in her day, say being yelled at by a big man.

I have seen men sweat when eating a lot of food, maybe a bit too quickly. However, was it the food or the wine? Was it either? How would one know? Concomitant activities that take place before an unpleasant or unwanted cardiac event can be subject to the post-hoc problem. However, if one eats only one item, in moderation, and then records a result, that would have to be repeated in order for it to be veridical/empirical.

Also, unless a person is on proton pump inhibitors, for one, why would a person be getting insufficient magnesium in her diet? Why up to several grams each day, or even half a gram? Has anyone had a blood assay that reported a deficiency in magnesium, specifically, and then been told to take supplements, or just to eat a better diet.

I'm just asking, not challenging or denying. I don't believe my AF came about as a result of magnesium deficiency (although I will allow that it might have contributed to my onset unbeknownst to two physicians who have read my blood assays for several years now). Instead, it was sleep apnea.

Well i know we get little mag from diet. It’s impossible. I do believe that magnesium is very important for heart rythm and BP. Us afibbers can no doubt benefit from it
Ive always taken magnesium realizing its no cure. Ive also read recent cardiac opinions that avg resting HR should actually be 50-70 not 71. So my only issue was my personal change.

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gloaming
Why up to several grams each day, or even half a gram? Has anyone had a blood assay that reported a deficiency in magnesium, specifically, and then been told to take supplements, or just to eat a better diet

I don't expect others to do what I do, I only post my experiments and experience for information for others. During the first four months of afib in 2004, I had a 2.5 month episode. Meeting with my EP, he suggested I stay out of rhythm since my afib rate, at the time, was around 80 BPM. I proposed a "Plan B" which included electrolyte supplementation, detraining (explained more here) and used of flecainide on demand when the other did not work. The original on-demand flec paper was published Dec 2, 2004. I was having this discussion prior to that, in October 2004. The EP agreed to my plan, but other than suggesting consuming B-6 with the magnesium had no input in to the plan. I've been following that basic outline since. In September, 2004, I'd ordered an Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis intracellular Exa Test with results of subnormal intracellular magnesium levels (serum magnesium levels can be normal while intracellular are subnormal). These results were part of my electrolyte reasoning as was a serum potassium level of 3.1 taken at the ER during my first afib episode and the last time I visited an ER for afib.

Empirically, grams of magnesium are what it takes for me to keep afib in remission (and I also consume 4 grams of potassium as citrate, not in a bolus, but over the day dissolved in a liter of water). After the first five months of afib, (the first four had an afib burden of 57%) for16 of 18 years I've had AF burden of < 0.04%. 2021 was one of the 2 "bad" years with a burden of 0.56%. For about 12 months of 2012-2013, was also a bad year, which I finally figured out was due to excess calcium consumption from food. I quit those food items and my burden immediately dropped to the prior low levels. 2021 was associated with both mRNA and non-mRNA C19 vaccines. I've described the time after Oct 27 2021 here.

I consider doctors as consultants and I use them just like I use consultants in business. I consider their advice and then make a decision. I'm pretty self-directed with my afib treatment. I do consult with a well known cardiologist/cardiothoracic surgeon who is also in the longevity space. He tells me to keep on doing what I'm doing for afib, since it is working. Most of the time my flec lasts way past expiration as I use so little. I still have some that expired in 2014 (again, not suggesting others do this). Branded flec, Tambocor, went off patent in 2004. I was first prescribed Tambocor, so when that batch was far after expiration, I subsequently have exclusively sourced Tambocor from Europe where it is still sold. I get it in blister packs, so oxidation is much less.

I also am very careful about metabolism and keep my weight within a pound or so of what it was in Grade 10, fasting insulin < 4 (usually < 2), A1C <=5.0. All my inflammatory levels are very low. HSCRP < 0.3, also test Tnf-alpha, various interleukins, troponin and so on. Self testing, I found apnea patterns in my heart rate during sleep and that mouth taping normalized them. The data are posted on this site. Despite detraining, I maintain strength and VO2max at high levels.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2022 12:13PM by GeorgeN.

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gloaming
Also, unless a person is on proton pump inhibitors, for one, why would a person be getting insufficient magnesium in her diet?

Because western diets are deficient in Mg. That's because of obvious things like processed and fast foods, but more importantly soils have been depleted of it by decades of farming practices. So even if you eat a very healthy diet and avoid fast and processed foods, you're still getting shortchanged on Mg. I don't have it handy offhand, but I saw a paper once that compared soil Mg levels published in the 1930s with levels today and it was found that soil Mg levels have declined significantly since the 1930s. The result is it's estimated that 60% of westerners are Mg deficient. So you might think you're consuming lots of Mg rich food via your diet, but odds are you're not getting anywhere near as much as you think.

One thing i learned on this site yrs ago is that blood test mag is not a true measure - its your cellular magnesium and that the rda on potassium is 4400 mg a day. A level no one achieves unless they work hard at it. I also know this. Since i stopped alcohol and increased magnesium ive had zero pvc s not tachy and my RHR is lower 58-62

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Poppino
One thing i learned on this site yrs ago is that blood test mag is not a true measure - its your cellular magnesium and that the rda on potassium is 4400 mg a day. A level no one achieves unless they work hard at it. I also know this. Since i stopped alcohol and increased magnesium ive had zero pvc s not tachy and my RHR is lower 58-62

Great news Tom! Paying attention to what your body is telling you is very important IMO.

Thanks, all of you, for your considered responses. I gives me encouragement that people find relief from various measures, and helps that they appear to have, and to act on, what Rotter would have termed 'internal loci of control' all those years ago.

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Poppino
One thing i learned on this site yrs ago is that blood test mag is not a true measure - its your cellular magnesium and that the rda on potassium is 4400 mg a day.

EXA test is better being tissue scraped from your mandible and not a serum test. The report comes with a recommendation on how much magnesium you need to supplement..no guesswork. I need 600mg/day, everyone is different.

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Poppino
Well i know we get little mag from diet. It’s impossible. I do believe that magnesium is very important for heart rythm and BP. Us afibbers can no doubt benefit from it
Ive always taken magnesium realizing its no cure. Ive also read recent cardiac opinions that avg resting HR should actually be 50-70 not 71. So my only issue was my personal change.

Hi Tom - I'm glad you are benefiting from the additional magnesium... as you and I have discussed, it was extremely helpful to me and I still continue with my daily regimen of Mg supplementation along with other nutrients.

My intracellular magnesium was low when I had my first ExaTest over 10 years ago and reported back then on what I had learned from the prescribing physician and the ExaTest website.
There's a large amount of archived posts from back then on this topic and it's important to understand that process... ie, intracellular content. Archived posts are beginning prox. 2009. -
here's one thread on the topic. Much more.
[www.afibbers.org]

Also - Spend time at the Exatest website
www.exatest.com/MITOCHONDRIA SEMINAR/Mitochondria Seminar%20 P1-1 INTRO.htm

[www.exatest.com]

I have more to add.. Consider this a lead in to an important topic that will affect not only heart function but overall health.

Jackie

PS Sorry I can't get the Pdf file to hyperlink (???) but if you copy/paste the URL it will bring up the Exatest home page which is loaded with info.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2022 01:32PM by Jackie.

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Jackie
PS Sorry I can't get the Pdf file to hyperlink (???) but if you copy/paste the URL it will bring up the Exatest home page which is loaded with info.

Your URL hyperlinked.

By the way, I had someone ask me for a recipe for making my potassium water. I want to add that anytime we talk about taking magnesium or potassium supplements, it assumes a person has healthy kidneys. Healthy kidneys will excrete any excess of either. If you don't have healthy kidneys, toxic levels can build up in the blood and the consequences can be very serious (or even fatal in the extreme). This is why potassium supplements in pill form are limited to 99 mg in the US.

Yes my kidney function has always tested perfect. The fact that 800 mg or so is not giving me any mag intestinal distress sorta tells me my body is craving more?
I do appreciate the more science based approach George & Jackie. Thankyou
PS : i recieved notification that i am now disqualified from this years IQ competition

so that is super interesting and I am going to try it with eggs in the morning. But I wonder.. if BPM increases could some of that be GERD/reflux related which would still be food 'sensitivity' but not in the same way as you are saying. (I have had sensitivity testing done and I had leaky gut and probably need to reboot all that anyway.). I' have a cold right now so maybe I will test it after that is gone- but lets say you are making eggs.. I usually use oil in the pan. So.. could that be a contributor? maybe I'll make HB eggs...

edit: so reading that book you linked..if your RHR is lower partly due to medications then maybe the 84 max isn't approrpriate for indicating food sensitivities? (Only on Flec as far as rhythm now. No CCB or BB.

also I have heard it discussed on this group that it Is 'better' to have a somewhat inconsistent heart rate.. like if you have a perfect beat to beat that isn't "normal". maybe I understood that incorrectly.

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GeorgeN

Then I found an read Dr. Arthur Coca's 1956 book that talked about his experiences using pulse testing to figure out food sensitivity. Essentially he suggested taking a full one minute pulse (I found an electronic instantaneous device pulse to not give as good a signal as a one minute average) before you ate then 30 and 60 minutes after. If the after rate was more than 6 BPM higher it indicated sensitivity. If you are eating a combined meal, then you have to go back at another time and eat things individually to figure out what the offending food is. In any case, I had non subtle increases like 15-25 BPM.
.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2022 08:21PM by bettylou4488.

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bettylou4488
also I have heard it discussed on this group that it Is 'better' to have a somewhat inconsistent heart rate.. like if you have a perfect beat to beat that isn't "normal". maybe I understood that incorrectly.
.

I think you may be referring to a little side comment I made recently. I was talking about seriously ill people in a hospital setting. It's perfectly normal for there to be some variation in beat-to-beat timing. Your heart isn't a metronome, so if you looked at the measurements between beats on what would be called a regular rhythm, you wouldn't see the exact same timing between each beat. There would be small variations. But it's been observed that a perfect, metronome-like beat can be an ominous sign of impending cardiac arrest in ICU patients. It's just a strange phenomenon that doesn't really apply to anyone here.

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bettylou4488
so that is super interesting and I am going to try it with eggs in the morning. But I wonder.. if BPM increases could some of that be GERD/reflux related which would still be food 'sensitivity' but not in the same way as you are saying. (I have had sensitivity testing done and I had leaky gut and probably need to reboot all that anyway.). I' have a cold right now so maybe I will test it after that is gone- but lets say you are making eggs.. I usually use oil in the pan. So.. could that be a contributor? maybe I'll make HB eggs...

edit: so reading that book you linked..if your RHR is lower partly due to medications then maybe the 84 max isn't approrpriate for indicating food sensitivities? (Only on Flec as far as rhythm now. No CCB or BB.

also I have heard it discussed on this group that it Is 'better' to have a somewhat inconsistent heart rate.. like if you have a perfect beat to beat that isn't "normal". maybe I understood that incorrectly.

Certainly, oil can be a contributor to sensitivity.

Low stomach acid can be a contributor to GERD. See: [www.amazon.com]

The variability that Dr. Coca talks about is very different than beat to beat variability. In my case, some of my food sensitivity heart rate increases weren't subtle. 15-25 BPM. This is not beat to beat and this increase would last for hours.

What you are talking about is known as heart rate variability (HRV). I'll use some numbers to elaborate. If your rate is 60 BPM, then eat beat lasts 1 second or 1000 milliseconds. In my case, my overnight heart rate variability average is commonly between 30 and 60 milliseconds (ms). Let's say it is 30, then 30/1000x60 =1.8 BPM. My 32 year old daughter (I'm 67) has numbers in the 125 ms range (HRV drops as you age - hers was huge when I checked it when she was 18). So 125/1000x60 =7.5 BPM. In my post above, I noted that taking a pulse for a full 60 seconds gave better answers. This will average the pulse for the minute and average out all these beat to beat variations. Most heart rate monitors report a moving average number, so you won't see these small variations. Even the watches and apps I have that record beat to beat lengths in ms show the data in real time as a 5 or 10 second moving average. I have to download the data to see this variation.

In my experience, flecainide doesn't change my HRV or my resting heart rate when I'm in NSR.

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GeorgeN


Low stomach acid can be a contributor to GERD. See: [www.amazon.com]


In my experience, flecainide doesn't change my HRV or my resting heart rate when I'm in NSR.

Thanks for the link and the other info. I have been trying ACV for Gerd. And I have some fire cider (with ACV) I hoped might help but not helping currently. I actually love hot water with ACV and some honey in the morning. I think part of it is I was trying to be a dutiful post ablation patient and took Prilosec for a full month. (I am not always a "good" patient. LOL.) It messed things up potentially. and whoopee.. I was able to snag that book from inner library loan.. both written and audio book!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2022 10:20PM by bettylou4488.