euheide's Journal, 30 January 2014

That's dissapointing. Well hopefully that solves it though. Is this your primary doctor? 

How did he know you had a magnesium deficiency?  

muscle twitching/spasms/cramps are signs of magnesium deficiency. bananas have magnesium too. 

I somewhat agree iamachristianjesusfreak! He acted as he was sure but yeah, he's been my doctor since I was a kid lol :) He always had very "fast" diagnosis mostly based on what I'll tell him heheh. He has, in the past requested tests, for example to see if I had sleep apnea, but it's very rare :)  

I will keep you posted on the results. It seems to be resulting so far because, I would just go one day without the multivitamin and, in that same night, I would already have RL symptoms and the last time I took the multivitamin was the day before yesterday. I started taking the magnesium yesterday. But I'm always a little concerned that whatever mistake I've made in my diet could have caused other different shortages. :P  

My idea Doublecheese is that, he acted on the information he knew beforehand on RLS because he didn't even consult anything. The minute I told him about the RL symptoms he immediately told me it was a magnesium shortage heheh. I guess that he was confident that, if it didn't work, that I would let him know or something like that :) Not sure. I will still take those tests in the near future though because who knows what else I might be missing as far as nutrients are concerned right? My father has been eating under my "guidelines" lol and he recently took blood tests and his blood iron levels were slightly bellow the normal limits. That certainly made me think. 

Oh no! I supported my own journal lol. I'm not functioning properly today lol.  

Thanks Ninaj! Yeah, apparently from what I know, magnesium is responsible for muscle relaxation while calcium is responsible for muscle contraction. And a magnesium depletion can also cause a calcium and potassium depletion. :) 

from what I know "now" that is lol. 

This doctor has ordered me to take blood tests in the past too but, most of the times, that doesn't happen :) 

My father has a magnesium deficiency too, he wakes up with very painful cramps. He has a magnesium supplement now but apparently it tastes and smells awful lol 

lol This is a Magnesium pidolate supplement. It actually tastes ok! :) It's a little too sweet especially now that I've abandoned sweets but the more water I mix with it the less sweet it gets. 

Luckily I didn't get those cramps. RL has this resemblance to cramps but it's different. You will feel pain, but that pain doesn't contract your legs. It will grow in intensity more less at the same pace as a cramp but will instead make you move your legs almost out of a natural reflex to escape the pain. It's like these super intense chills going through your legs. Has your father never suffered from RL? 

I mean, occasionally, after swimming, I will get cramping, mostly on the soles of my feet and on the back of my upper legs but that usually subsides after training. 

Take natures own magnesium tablets they taste like nothing:-) 

The best advice I've been given on how to deal with cramps was to contradict the cramp movement. That will usually effectively stop that one cramp but the problem is, it may be possible that you will have to maintain that "stretched" position to avoid the cramping to continue. And with those very painful cramps I don't even know if that works...  

Thanks for the tip Ninaj! I have to admit that I'm a little suspicious of natural supplements because of the apparent lack of regulations (since they're not considered nor food, neither drugs). Your experience so far has been positive with them? 

Since I've seen that article about the independent testing of some protein supplements I've been a little suspicious lol. 

I should probably also say that, in my father's very recent routine blood test report, his B12 vitamin and folate levels were good. I kind of assume that, because I'm eating more or less the same foods as he is, that I should not have low levels of those, which is good heheh. His cholesterol was above the recommended level but with all the new research about cholesterol... And he has a doctor friend who has had an "over the charts" cholesterol for many years and never cared about it, claiming that research was contradicting on it. On the other hand, my doctor, who is also a personal friend of my father has told me a story about a patient of his, who had competed in triathlon for a very long time and was still doing it, and who had a high cholesterol and, this man had a heart attack. Was it connected to the cholesterol though since he wasn't careful with nutrition at all... Couldn't it have been some other cause related to his poor nutrition? Correlation shouldn't necessarily imply causality.  

I have to call the lab though and ask which one of these tests indicates magnesium levels because I can't seem to find it. It's probably one of the many sections under technical designations.