Meyers Cocktail -- helping

I have been getting afib off and on since 1996 (a few times a year then every month), as of October of last year I started getting afib about every two weeks. Then on July 31st of this year I got an IV of a cocktail called "Meyers plus" from my Holistic doc. From the 26th of July until the 25th of August (went into afib) I was free from afib, almost a month.

Then on the 9th of Sept. I started getting afib every 3 days, so I thought I would try the Meyers plus again--on Sept. 15th I got an IV, I had another afib episode a day later, but from that time on to the present I am afib free. Yesterday I got another IV of the Meyers plus, if this keeps me afib free, I will get an IV once a month.

The ingredients of the Meyers cocktail are:

1. Sterile Water
2. Ascorbic Acid
3. Magnesium Sulfate
4. Calcium Gluconate
5. B-12
6. B-6 Pyridoxine
7. B-Complex
8. B-5 Dexapanthenol (Pantothenic Acid)
9. Folic Acid
1 cc Glutathione

It takes about 5 - 10 minutes to admimister and I feel an immediate warmth spreading throughout my body and you can taste the B vit.

I have not done anything differently, I still get palps however. Has anyone heard of this Meyers Cocktail (not served in bars). I was getting afib like clockwork every two weeks, now it has stopped, I don't know for how long this will last, so many things seem to work and then quit, I will let you all know if it continues.

I also wonder why if hypoglycemia can trigger afib, why doesn't it trigger afib for us vagals in the daytime, I mean I am prone also to hypoglycemia and many times in the daytime I go too long without eating and get low blood sugar, I get palps but never leads to afib. I always got the afib episode in the early a.m. (4 - 5:00). Just threw that in as I have been reading the discussions on hypoglycemia etc.

Liz Vagal

Liz,

Perhaps the reason you don't get AF at other times of the day during which hypoglycemia may occur is because of the diurnal variation in vagal tone.

For us vagal LAFers vagal tone is the major determinant of when episodes occur and that would be during the night. It does this through shortening of the atrial effective refractory period (AERP) amongst other things. Hypoglycemia also causes shortening of the AERP in the left atrium. Perhaps this is only enough to trigger AF when the left atrium is already primed at night by vagal tone.

PC v54

P.S. Most of the contents of Meyer's cocktail are water soluble and should be immediately eliminated in the urine. Perhaps its the magnesium. But if it works, I'd be the last one to criticize it.

Elizabeth,

PC,

In the important 1994 book "Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis", Alan R. Gaby, MD, writes re: the "Myers' cocktail" in the chapter titled Magnesium: The Mineral That "Does It All":

"This combination of injected nutrients was popularized by the late John Myers, MD, of Baltimore, Maryland, whose patients taught it to me after his death. I have used a modification of the Myers' Cocktail with great success for other conditions, including chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia (a common condition which causes muscle pain and spasm), chronic urticaria (hives), congestive heart failure, angina, and acute infections.... cardiac arrhythmias..." "I have presented information on intravenous nutrients therapy at medical seminars during the past eight years, and I estimate that more than one thousand physicians are currently making use of this treatment."

In his booklet Magnesium Dr. Gaby's writes:

"As disease progresses, cells lose their ability to function properly. Most of the cells of the body maintain a very high magnesium concentration relative to that in the blood serum. For example, there is about ten times as much magnesium inside the cells of a healthy heart as there is in the serum. This high concentration of magnesium is necessary for cells to perform their various biochemical tasks. However, maintaining this steep concentration gradient between cells and blood requires a great deal of energy. The laws of random motion cause magnesium ions to leak continually out of the cells and into the bloodstream. Each time a magnesium ion leaks out, another one must be pulled back in by special pumps that reside on the cell membrane. Pulling against a concentration gradient is analogous to swimming upstream or to carrying bowling balls up a hill, only to see them roll right back down. As inefficient as that sounds, that is how the body works. Indeed, a substantial proportion of the calories you burn each day are used to maintain higher concentrations of some nutrients inside cells than in the bloodstream. When you become ill, some of the cells in your body may become less efficient in holding on to magnesium. The cell membranes may break down, allowing more magnesium to leak out. In addition, the cell membrane pumps that pull magnesium back in may also be weakened by disease. The end result is that disease itself can be a cause of magnesium deficiency. Since magnesium deficiency may have been one of the original causes of the disease, a vicious cycle of greater deficiency and increasingly severe disease may result .... a substantial minority of patients ... fail to improve after taking oral magnesium for months or even years. In these cases, administering magnesium by injection is necessary to overcome their medical problems."

From the Forum and Bulletin Board for magnesium headed by Walt Stoll, M.D. at [askwaltstollmd.com]

"Magnesium metabolism has one quirk in that, if the level is low enough (in that person) to cause symptoms, it is low enough that the body loses its ability to absorb it efficiently orally. Since it is almost impossible to hurt someone by giving them too much magnesium, doing a therapeutic trial of an easily absorbed (orally) form of chelated magnesium (orotate, aspartate or glycinate) might be tried by anyone.""This paragraph is just to warn those who try it that way--and get no results--not to throw out the baby with the bath water. They may just be not absorbing it orally. For those, they will need intravenous infusions of at least 2 grams of elemental magnesium/IV about 3 times a week for 2 weeks. This can be injected over a period of about 5 minutes with no risk or negative side effects. By then, they should be able to absorb it orally for maintenance. By then, they will also know if their body-mind laboratory says they needed it (Did they get better?)"

Erling, 75, ex fibber coming up on 2 years, many thanks to magnesium and to fine doctors such as Gaby and Stoll and PC.

Gee. Erling

You're just johnny-on-the-spot with the historical details. Can't find more pragmatic MDs than Gaby and Stoll.

In view of Dr. Stoll's comment about the occasional need for IV Mg perhaps Cu should be added to Myer's cocktail.

A study with human volunteers was conducted to ascertain whether a low intake of copper (Cu) would exacerbate the response to a deficient intake of magnesium (Mg). Several variables measured indicated that low dietary copper affected the response to magnesium deprivation or vice-versa.
in "Some magnesium status indicators and oxidative metabolism responses to low-dietary magnesium are affected by dietary copper in postmenopausal women", Nutrition. 2003 Jul-Aug;19(7-8):617-26 from the Grand Forks Human Nutrition Center

Hans has been talking about the importance of Cu and this recent article would seem to underscore that. So eat those sunflower seeds and barley.

Thanks so much for your continuing contributions, cured though you may be.

PC v54