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Has magnesium helped anyone w/ UC symptoms?

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 1/31/2010 3:42 PM (GMT -7)
Hi,

I meant to ask one other question.  Has anyone had success with improving uc symptoms with magnesium supplementation?  I have read a number of articles that seem to say that we need a higher than the recommended dosage of magnesium and that this can help w/ remission of symptoms.  But, also tied to magnesium deficiency were other things including restless leg syndrome and polycystic ovarian disease, and I have all them. 

For the short while that I could tolerate the high dosage, the RLS was gone. I tried this (on my own-mind you- a little experiment) and I could not tolerate the high dosage.

So, I am wondering if anyone has had success, because I read that if your digestive sys. can't tol. the magnesium, injections are available and I would like to know more.  I asked my family doctor and she did not know anything about it. 

Thank you!

Posted 1/31/2010 4:15 PM (GMT -7)
Amercian doctors get very, very little training in nutrition and foods and the effects on the body.  So its no surprise your dr hasnt heard of it.  The bulk of their training is with drugs.  I have had symtpoms of magnesium deficiency for years even before I had UC.  I have suffured with frequent muscle cramps, restless legs, irregular heart beat, depression/anxiety and more, but I never knew until recently I had a magmesium deficiency. 

There are a bunch of threads on here about a spinach/sunflower seed diet.  The basis behind it is to eat a lot of foods with very high amounts of magnesium.  It seems the body absorbs mag better from foods than from supplements.  Also, foods allow the body to combine nutrients/vitamins for better absorbtion.  I have had wonderful success with eating this way - as well as others from this site have.  It actually brought me to remission and keeps me in remission as long as I continue to eat high mag foods often. 

 

Posted 1/31/2010 6:51 PM (GMT -7)

Hello,

From what lil' I know, Magnesium relaxes smooth muscles (so can help with cramping, painful periods, etc) and some 40% of Americans are deficient in magnesium and don't even know it.

Apparently magnesium chelates (citrate, aspartate, etc.) are better absorbed than mag. salts (carbonate).  Because of the relaxing, we have to be careful about it becoming a laxative (i.e., milk of magnesia).  So I've been advised to start at a low dose and, if I'm really tender, just to add liquid magnesium to a footbath.  I bought the liquid magnesium but haven't tried that yet.  I like Sore_guts recommendation.

Posted 1/31/2010 10:02 PM (GMT -7)
Just don't over do it with mag supplemens as it can act as a stimulant increasing bowel movements. I know this from recent first hand knowledge as I was recently advised to take 900 mg of mag to help with some nerve inflammation and after a week the stool produced during my bm's went way way up and when I backed off the mag to abor 400 mg they returned to normal.
Posted 1/31/2010 10:53 PM (GMT -7)
I tried it and didn't notice significant improvement. It can't hurt to try so you might as well give it a shot.
Posted 2/1/2010 12:55 AM (GMT -7)
The spinach and sunflower seed diet is high in magnesium.
Posted 2/1/2010 9:58 AM (GMT -7)
I added sunflower seeds to my diet over a year ago and seems to be keeping my UC is check.  I got slack over Christmas, started to see some mucous, so I increased my consumption of sunflower seeds and all is clear again.

I don't do the supplement thing for vitamins, I prefer to get mine in their natural form.

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