Pins-and-Needles

After my friend, Christena Louise, sent me an article by Chris
Gupta on how magnesium has been shown to be effective in
overcoming symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, I tried to find the
particular form of magnesium mentioned in Gupta's article, without
success -- at least initially.

This is how Christena's email began:

Initially I wasn't particularly struck by the email because I don't
have Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, diabetes or cancer.

But like a fertile seed, the article took root in my mind and I began
remembering a women's health newsletter I subscribed to in which
the doctor-authors were zealots for magnesium, and convincingly so.

After reading the women's newsletter which month after month
emphasized the necessity for, and the strengths of magnesium, I
was convinced. I got magnesium and began taking a tablet each time
I ate anything with calcium in it. (A main thrust of the newsletter
was that we take a lot of calcium in the United States which does
more damage than good unless it is accompanied by magnesium.)

I fully expected the magnesium to make the calcium in my food so
usable for my body that my bones would be nice and dense even
though I was nearing my sixties.

So, when I had my bone density tested and my bones were dense, I
wasn't surprised, though the administrators of the test appeared to
be. They were giving the test for free, and then instructing people
on the medication for increasing bone density. Presumably they
were being paid by the medication manufacturers or distributors
with which they were associated.

I really didn't think much beyond, "Magnesium is needed for bone
density and it sure seems to work."

However, now that I'm beginning to get over the tetanus I got last
year (2004) when I had failed to have a tetanus shot in 30 years, I
am keenly aware of serious, debilitating pain in my back, similar to
that I had prior to B12 replacement therapy.

Here's the crunch: for all these years I thought the pain in my back
went away because of having had cyanocobalamin injections as B12
replacement therapy.

For a fact the pain in my back dramatically decreased; and for a fact
I was having B12 replacement therapy. But, what I forgot was that
at the same time that I had money for B12 replacement, I began to
buy and take magnesium so that I could follow the advice in the
newsletter. (I also began to eat more protein which may have had an
affect.)

At the time I got the cheap K-Mart brand of magnesium, which I
expect was Magnesium Oxide, just as the cheap Wal*Mart brand is
the Oxide form today.

When I got tetanus, which is a very unpleasant disease, to say the
least, I stopped taking magnesium because I could no longer control
my own diet since I was too sick to make meals and my meals were
brought in.

So, I have not had much magnesium during the last year, while at
the same time I have had a lot of cobalamin (B12).

Therefore, if it were the cobalamin which reduced my back pain, I
should not have back pain now. But I do.

When I had this realization, the day before yesterday, on September
28, 2005, I immediately decided that I needed to go back to taking
magnesium with calcium-containing-food, and to get a lot more
cheese and yogurt into my diet so that I would in fact be taking
more magnesium. (I had previously been taking one magnesium
tablet each time I had a bit of yogurt or a piece of cheese. In total I
was probably taking anywhere from three to six or nine tablets a
day.)

The first day of my renewed interest in, and consumption of,
magnesium a friend got me a pizza and I had five tablets over two
meals and one snack of heavily cheesed pizza. (I hadn't had any
pizza in 50 weeks.)

That night I slept particularly soundly, and even dreamed. Usually I
don't fall deeply enough asleep or sleep long enough to dream.
(Prior to B12 replacement I seldom got four hours a night unless I
took a strong sleeping pill. So, I'm certainly not complaining about
the 7 hours of sleep a night that I get now.)

Based on the sense of relaxation that I feel, I believe that in less
than six months I am going to experience a dramatic reduction of
pain in my back. : )

"Pins and needles" is often a warning signal of magnesium
deficiency, wrote Francine Prince in Saturday Evening Post two
decades ago. (I was reading this and other articles and research on
magnesium in an effort to understand the different forms and why
Christena's article by Chris Gupta said magnesium chloride was the
most easily and efficiently absorbed and therefore the best... when I
couldn't find a place to buy it.)

I remembered my doctor associating pins and needles with low B12.
I was sure he was right because my pins and needles sensations had
vastly reduced as I had B12 replacement therapy.

...."both magnesium as well as chloride have other important
functions in keeping us young and healthy. Chloride, of course, is
required to produce a large quantity of gastric acid each day and is
also needed to stimulate starch-digesting enzymes. Magnesium is the
mineral of rejuvenation and prevents the calcification of our organs
and tissues that is characteristic of the old-age related degeneration
of our body.

Using other magnesium salts is less advantageous because these
have to be converted into chlorides in the body anyway. We may
use magnesium as oxide or carbonate but then we need to produce
or have additional hydrochloric acid to absorb them. Many aging
individuals, especially with chronic diseases who desperately need
more magnesium cannot produce sufficient hydrochloric acid and
then cannot absorb the oxide or carbonate.

Foods containing magnesium.