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.