OT--epsom salt baths--long

January 12, 2007

I have had several emails asking me what I found out about insomnia

related to Epsom salt baths, so I thought I might be helping a lot of

people if I post the info to the list. I have received permission from

the SulfurStories listowner Owens to post an excerpt of one of

their files here. She would like me to include her email with it in

case people have questions about the post, but I can't find here email

address. Anybody with questions, though, could join SulfurStories and

ask.

So here it is:

What if my child gets agitated?

Very few children may seem more agitated after the initial bath, or

several baths later. It is not known why this happens, but it is easy

to deal with. Just cut back on the baths for a few days and then begin

again, but with a much smaller amount of ES-perhaps a teaspoon, and

work up the amount very slowly. Also, you may see if the child reacts

to magnesium by trying it in a different form orally.

Q: I gave my child an epsom salt bath, and s/he seemed more hyper

and/or emotional afterwards. Is this related to the bath? Why would

my child react this way instead of having the " expected " results?

I think the trick here, which is important to know about, is that you

need to start slowly when introducing a supplement of something for

which you have been deficient a long time, and then slowly work up to

more. This is because, unlike drugs, where the quantity of a dose is

set by the doctor trying to obtain a blood level of something FOREIGN

to the body, introducing a supplement of something the body uses every

day works in a whole different way, and this can be generalized to

lots of things. I'll explain why.

Most chemical reactions happen inside cells after substances have

crossed over the cell's outer membrane. For things cells use everyday,

they have specific transporters and receptors that are expressed on

the cell surface in the quantity that is appropriate to assure an

appropriate supply to that cell type. Not all cells like the same

quantity. When everything works right, the inside of the cell gets the

appropriate quantity of what it needs of that substance. The cell

wants not too much and not too little and it knows how to adjust the

availability of that substance to the inside of the cell when the

supply outside the cell changes.

If the supply of something the body uses up every day has been low for

awhile, the cell will upregulate the transporter or receptor that is

specific for that substance. Upregulation means it will put more of

these working molecules on the cell surface in order to increase the

odds that the substance will find its receptor or transporter.

When the supply has been high for a long time, the cell will also cut

back the quantity of the receptor or transporter on the cell surface.

Cells are very fluid like that: changing and adjusting constantly: not

like a machine at all! Your car doesn't increase the gas caps when its

fuel supply is low, but it doesn't have to gets its gas from the

passing parade by chance and kinetics...

So, if you have been deficient in sulfate for a long time, your cells

would have upregulated the transporters to make much of little. All

over the body, receptors that need sulfated ligands might have been

upregulated as well, trying to increase their signal or supply.

If you suddenly increase the quantity of sulfate that approaches the

cell by several fold, you can get too intense a signal, and that can

be overwhelming. That is why you should start slowly. This gives your

body's cells a chance to readjust to the new level they will be

seeing. We're not trying to overdo that level, but just to return it

to something normal.

Remember that cells are accustomed to biological rhythms that change the

quantities of nutrients that cells see. This includes feeding

schedules and sleep. Cells don't make these adjustments on whim or

very quickly, for they know there will be long periods of time when

the supply gets lower just because it has been a long time since you

ate something. I would guess, for that reason, that cells tend to

adjust to conditions that may continue for at least a day or two.

The way this biology works gives me the suspicion that the children

who get

the most hyper after their first epsom salts bath or baths may be the

children who have been the most deficient of this substance, and have

receptors and transporters dialed WAY up.

If you are deficient in supply, even when you have receptors or

transporters expressed at extremely high quantity, you still might be

low in quantity for the function you need. The increase of receptors

or transporters will help, but it isn't much of a solution long term.

If you get exposed to something that requires a lot of sulfate for

your body to detoxify (like phenols in fumes or foods or drugs), the

level of sulfate available for NORMAL functions will be hurting

temporarily as your body tries to recover from this demand. The loss

of the function of other molecules that use sulfate for normal

function is likely what is producing symptoms: not your body feeling

toxic as if it had just been " burned " by the substance your body was

trying to detoxify. That sort of injury might take longer and it would

probably be more subtle, anyway. If you are having neurological

reactions, you are probably seeing an adjustment in the neurological

chemistry which is feeling shorted and may be overwhelmed with sudden

change.

Of course, you really need an appropriate supply of sulfate, but the

story of HOW the supply got low in the first place can be very

different from child to child, and involve organs like the kidneys,

the liver and the GI tract and systems like the immune system.

Anyway, as an example of this sort of mechanism with an entirely

different substance, I'll tell you a little about the secretin story.

This sort of receptor-quantity issue was suspected to be happening in

the children with autism who were given IV secretin. In response to

the same dose that had a predictable response in normal people, those

with autism instead put out huge quantities of pancreatic fluid. Their

response was intense on the very same dose that other patients were

getting without experiencing this overexuberant response.

Why? The sudden increase in secretin was more of a surprise for the

bodies

of autistic children than it was for the other children with GI

problems being tested. The pancreas was OVER responsive to secretin

probably because this was the first good supply of secretin that it

had gotten in a long time. Scientists suspected that the amount of

secretin these children had been producing on their own had been low

for a long time. I hope all this makes sense. Your body makes

secretin, but it also makes sulfate from the amino acids cysteine and

methionine. There may be a reason this isn't happening appropriately.

I've heard of parents starting with as little as a teaspoon in the

bathwater and working up. You can also apply the solution topically,

and can control the quantity by how much surface of the skin you

cover. The half-life of sulfate in the blood is 4-9 hours.

At any rate, please do not interpret this [emotional/hyper reaction]

to mean the epsom salts were the wrong thing...it may mean exactly the

opposite! Normal people do not have any response to epsom salts baths

except maybe to feel relaxed later! They don't get hyper or emotional…

If you have already tried reducing the quantity of epsom salts

drastically and slowly increasing the quantity, and it doesn't work to

reduce this hyper or emotional response, I'd be glad to talk to you

offlist about what else it might mean.

So there you have it. I hope I'm not going to far with this long OT

post. It certainly seems related to what we do here.

, mom to

January 13, 2007

This is great! Everything we've added to our dd's diet, supp's has reflected

this exactly! Starting with a smaller amt. is always the best thing to do. Jenn

& K SCD 20 months

julie46250 wrote: I have had several emails

asking me what I found out about insomnia