Re: Re: Transient Muscle Spasms

[Guest guest]

Renate-

> The magnesium supplements I get make you swallow 4 huge horse pills a

> day for the 100% RDA, which in other things is only enough to stave

> off deficiency symptoms in most. So do you think you're getting

> enough magnesium, and is it good quality? I've heard many people say

> that magnesium deficiency causes spasms and cramps (ask any pregnant

> woman, that's when they tell you!)

I don't know. Lately I've been taking some magnesium malate along

with magnesium taurate, but I'm sure it would be helpful to take

more... if I didn't have gastric problems as a result.

> That said, and you're probably wondering when I'll get around to

> asking this, have you been checked for lyme disease?

I've had Lyme since I was 11. Sadly, nobody gave me antibiotics

immediately. (Nobody even realized it was Lyme until years later when

the characteristic rash became more widely known.) Thankfully, nobody

put me on extended antibiotic treatments later on.

> One of the more

> common symptoms as it starts to damage the cranial nerves is stiff

> neck problems that last for a week or longer. I wound up getting

> muscle spasms and a stiff neck for two months toward the end of my

> lyme (when I finally figured out what it was and started taking care

> of it!)

I've long figured that the torticollis might be due to the Lyme (it

started soon afterwards) but this is new. Torticollis seems to

involve a large region of muscle and winds up dramatically affecting

my posture. This doesn't affect my posture at all, except, I suppose,

during an attack, though while I was making dinner just now I started

to feel a more persistent torticollis-like spasm in the affected area.

Not a happy thing.

> There's also a muscle that runs from behind the ear to the front of

> the neck - can't remember the name of it, and when that gets upset

> with us (for whatever reason) it can cause weird symptoms from stuffy

> nose to shoulder/back pain. So to soothe that and the weird

> twitches, maybe a nice epsom salt soak would cover both.

Hmm, that muscle definitely isn't involved, but while I imagine an

epsom salt bath might prove helpful, I don't have epsom salts, my

bathroom isn't really bath-friendly, and I think the heat would

probably kill me.

> Also, how's your salt intake?

Pretty massive. I'm a saltaholic under normal conditions, and now

that the weather's turned awful, I'm gobbling down more than ever. I

just indulged in a rare treat for dinner -- scallops in cream sauce

(and I even took a photo, !) -- and I'm sure most people would've

found it unpalatably salty, but to me it was just right.

> So I guess the old

> people dying on the hot summer days are the ones on the low sodium

> diets the doctors love pushing.

Yeah, that's bound to be a good part of it.

> Hope you feel better soon, that sounds awful!

It's not fun. I have a tennis match tomorrow, and I'm dreading

flurries of spasms in the middle of important points. I'm taking some

extra magnesium tonight just for in case it helps, but I have to be

cautious with my dosing, unfortunately.

-

[Guest guest]

>

> Hmm, that muscle definitely isn't involved, but while I imagine an

> epsom salt bath might prove helpful, I don't have epsom salts, my

> bathroom isn't really bath-friendly, and I think the heat would

> probably kill me.

>

Epsom salts are very cheap and easy to get. You can make cold epsom salt

water to use in a spray bottle instead of a bath - it feels lovely on a hot

day (and if it isn't cold enough for you you could always add ice to the

spray bottle).

Although, from what you describe I'd say it sounds much like you have a

pinched nerve. I suggest you visit a chiropractor. Most people do get out

of alignment thanks to the inherently bad positions using a computer,

reading, etc put them in. After seeing a variety of chiropractic styles

through the years, I'd recommend someone that does the activator technique (

activator.com). The activator gives the bonus of being able to target

specific areas without having to adjust others to get to them. Those who

use the activator can also do several joint adjustments that standard

chiropractor cannot.

-Lana

[Guest guest]

-

> How much potassium are you supplementing with? If you are a

> salt-aholic like you mentioned in your reply, then it may help to try

> higher doses of potassium. What kind are you taking?

A few hundred mg, I guess. I capped some NOW potassium gluconate

powder -- the stuff you told me about -- and I've taken 2-4 caps per

day.

> I know this isn't what you want to hear but sometimes our minds just

> want to do more than our bodies can handle, and our bodies need more

> time to build up stores and less extreme extended periods of exercise.

> Some exercise that doesn't make you sweat buckets may be helpful. I

> just really don't think pushing your body to the point of where you

> get strange reactions like you explained can be good for you.

Well, yes and no. I played just as long last summer, when I think I

was in worse shape than I am now and when the weather was much hotter

and more humid, and I never had this problem. Plus, even if I stopped

exercising immediately, I'd still sweat buckets -- literally. Just

sitting here in my office, I'm a tremendously productive perspiration

factory. I'm just not well-suited to summer (or late spring or early

fall) weather. Basically the only thing the warm part of the year has

over winter and late fall, IMO, is that there's tennis to be played.

Other than that, it's mostly just an interminable slog of pain, grime

and misery.

> This reminded me of these horrendous muscle spasms from like 8 years

> ago. I was like 16 and would skateboard non-stop for at least 8 hours

> and really push it...then wake up in the middle of the night and my

> calf would cramp up and stay cramped for minutes and I would be

> absolutely paralyzed with pain. It was the most physically painful

> experience of my life, and it happened at least a dozen or more times.

Actually, I'd been meaning to post about an unexpected solution to

muscle cramping that I found recently; I'm glad you reminded me.

Even before I started playing tennis (and, before that, ultimate

frisbee) again last summer, I regularly had muscle cramps at night

which would often wake me up and prevent me from getting back to

sleep. (The foot ones were especially miserable.) I just sweat a lot

in the summer even when I'm not doing anything physical -- enough that

salt stains often form all over my shirt. I tried supplementing with

a wide variety of different minerals at doses to bowel tolerance, and

though magnesium had a slight if unreliable positive effect, nothing

really worked. It started again recently with the turn of the

weather, and for an altogether different reason I took a big dose of

CoQ10 which I had lying around, and presto, no leg or foot cramps.

CoQ10 worked consistently since then. Unfortunately, this torticollis-

like problem (and in my left shoulder at that, which is a little odd

since I'm a rightie on the tennis courts and in just about all other

domains) doesn't seem to respond to it.

-

[Guest guest]

Thanks for that idea ,! I get this horrendous cramping up of my

hamstring I think it is. All the way down to the back of my knee.

Magnesium helps a lot but doesn't get rid of it entirely.

It was super super bad when I was pregnant, I was miserable for a long time

until I took big doses of magnesium but again, it became manageable but was

always present.

So I look forward to giving this a try. I was told to try it for other

reasons (thyroid issues) so this combined makes it more tolerable to buy the

expensive supplements. Where do you get yours?

I hope you find help with your problem. I can imagine how horrible it is

based on some things I had going on when I was pregnant. And that sounds a

lot like an alignment issue I had towards the end when my huge baby was

pulling my back out of whack. I never did get to the chiropractor but after

a few months postpartum that went away.

Every time it happened before that Doug (DH) thought I was going into labor!

It HURT.

Dawn

From:

[mailto: ] On Behalf Of Idol

Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2008 11:07 PM

Subject: Re: Re: Transient Muscle Spasms

-

> How much potassium are you supplementing with? If you are a

> salt-aholic like you mentioned in your reply, then it may help to try

> higher doses of potassium. What kind are you taking?

A few hundred mg, I guess. I capped some NOW potassium gluconate

powder -- the stuff you told me about -- and I've taken 2-4 caps per

day.

> I know this isn't what you want to hear but sometimes our minds just

> want to do more than our bodies can handle, and our bodies need more

> time to build up stores and less extreme extended periods of exercise.

> Some exercise that doesn't make you sweat buckets may be helpful. I

> just really don't think pushing your body to the point of where you

> get strange reactions like you explained can be good for you.

Well, yes and no. I played just as long last summer, when I think I

was in worse shape than I am now and when the weather was much hotter

and more humid, and I never had this problem. Plus, even if I stopped

exercising immediately, I'd still sweat buckets -- literally. Just

sitting here in my office, I'm a tremendously productive perspiration

factory. I'm just not well-suited to summer (or late spring or early

fall) weather. Basically the only thing the warm part of the year has

over winter and late fall, IMO, is that there's tennis to be played.

Other than that, it's mostly just an interminable slog of pain, grime

and misery.

> This reminded me of these horrendous muscle spasms from like 8 years

> ago. I was like 16 and would skateboard non-stop for at least 8 hours

> and really push it...then wake up in the middle of the night and my

> calf would cramp up and stay cramped for minutes and I would be

> absolutely paralyzed with pain. It was the most physically painful

> experience of my life, and it happened at least a dozen or more times.

Actually, I'd been meaning to post about an unexpected solution to

muscle cramping that I found recently; I'm glad you reminded me.

Even before I started playing tennis (and, before that, ultimate

frisbee) again last summer, I regularly had muscle cramps at night

which would often wake me up and prevent me from getting back to

sleep. (The foot ones were especially miserable.) I just sweat a lot

in the summer even when I'm not doing anything physical -- enough that

salt stains often form all over my shirt. I tried supplementing with

a wide variety of different minerals at doses to bowel tolerance, and

though magnesium had a slight if unreliable positive effect, nothing

really worked. It started again recently with the turn of the

weather, and for an altogether different reason I took a big dose of

CoQ10 which I had lying around, and presto, no leg or foot cramps.

CoQ10 worked consistently since then. Unfortunately, this torticollis-

like problem (and in my left shoulder at that, which is a little odd

since I'm a rightie on the tennis courts and in just about all other

domains) doesn't seem to respond to it.

-

[Guest guest]

-

> Well, during a milk fast, when I was working in the heat sweating

> heavily, I was getting roughly 12g of potassium from the milk (~1.5

> gallon @ about 500mg of potassium per cup) and I still noticed an

> improvement when I took ~3 teaspoons over the day of potassium from

> potassium gluconate (so like 1.5 g of supplemental potassium).

Holy crap! 1.5g??? I realize that in macroscopic terms, that's not

really all that much, but still, I'd sort of expect a dose like that

to cause me severe digestive distress. I have to be super-ultra-mega

cautious with magnesium, even in taurate form, which is the one I

tolerate best by far.

> Looking at those numbers it doesn't seem like supplementing would be

> significant compared to dietary potassium but I did some research on

> gluconic acid and it does stimulate good bacteria to produce butyrate

> and it feeds good bacteria in the large intestine. But regardless,

> I was getting very high amounts of potassium and I felt stronger and

> more resilient than I have in years

Interesting. I guess I'll try higher doses this week and cross my

fingers my guts will tolerate them... though I'd sort of halfway

wondered whether starting the potassium might have been the trigger

for this latest problem. (Said problem actually seems to be a pinched

nerve, not a spasming muscle after all; I hadn't realized that pinched

nerves could cause repeated but momentary explosions of agony rather

than ongoing steady-state pain, but apparently they can. At any rate,

depending on what's doing the pinching, that would seem to make the

potassium a less likely culprit.)

> I also supplement with pretty high doses of now foods magnesium

> citrate powder. It varies daily, I've learned to tell when my body

> needs more magnesium through trial and error and various symptoms.

> There is a nerve pain in between my adrenals that I can feel slightly

> if I need magnesium, and it will disappear upon supplementing. I also

> crave sour foods when I need magnesium.

Citrate just doesn't work for me, but then high doses of any form

don't work for me even though I'm pretty sure I need them. I've

actually been trying topically applying some so-called magnesium oil

(made from condensed seawater, which makes me think it probably has

far more sodium than magnesium) but I don't really know whether it's

accomplishing anything since the CoQ10 is having a far more profound

effect on my former tendency to get muscle cramps after sweating a lot.

> and I actually feel much better and don't have any yeast

> symptoms without the coconut oil.

Do you mean with the coconut oil?

> More importantly I can supplement

> with more reasonable doses of magnesium without worrying about getting

> the runs, and that also means I retain more electrolytes. Does anyone

> know if the short chain fatty acids kill good and bad yeasts? I know

> they don't kill good bacteria?

Some of them are antimicrobial, but I'm not sure whether they

distinguish between good and bad yeasts.

> Have you ever thought of living somewhere colder in the future? Its

> not solving the source of the problem but it may help...In any case,

> I wish you the best in your struggles.

Yeah, and someday I probably will, particularly in light of global

warming, but NYC is a singular place, and while the drawbacks are

significant (including the cost, the lack of nature, the godawful heat

and humidity in the summer, the absurd difficulty involved in playing

a decent amount of tennis, and so on) the advantages are fairly

unique. I do love San Francisco, but while summers there are much,

much milder, there's no fall or winter, which in most ways are my two

favorite seasons. And there's not much in the way of public

transportation. In the US at least, NYC reins supreme in that

department. When I moved back into NYC in '01, I got rid of my car

after something like two months; it was nothing but an inconvenience

and an expense, especially considering that I live 1/4 of a block from

a subway station, a few blocks from another subway line, and half a

block from a bus stop. While driving can be a genuine pleasure

sometimes, in general I'd much rather read or write on a subway than

have to watch the road while getting from one place to another, and

being stuck in traffic is pretty much an ultimate hell. My ideal

scenario would be to have a lot of property way out in the wilderness

(preferably up north) with a door into Manhattan. Or better yet, a

retargetable door that opens into any city I choose. <g>

-