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constipation!!!!! Now that I am settling down with all side effects of tecfidera, guess what cannot poop. All I did was poop and now I am not. Any suggestions? Very Leary of changing my diet regiment. Could this possible of course either one way or the other because I am really tired of a bathroom.Ash3

have you tried magnesium oxide? If not, consider 200mg for a few days then cautiously add 100mg per day slowly until you reach your own tolerance level. don't overdo! especially not when you are out of immediate toilet range ... consider yourself warned

Hey there!
Thanks for the suggestion jimmylegs!

also, getting enough Magnesium every day (for the health benefits) will help keep you regular as well. Some kinds of Mg are good laxitives, especially Mg oxide (only about 4% is absorbed.)

Other kinds are absorbed much better (Mg Glycinate, Mg Malate, etc.) These kinds can be taken in much higher amounts than Mg Oxide before stool softening occurs.

ash, you're welcome - in the near term, oxide will be best for your particular issue, specifically b/c it is so poorly absorbed.
it's not by any means a form of choice when working to optimize magnesium status...

Hello, THX1138!
Thank you for the suggestion!

fyi here is the mag glycinate i use for long term absorption purposes - personally if i take more than one per day i get muscle weakness. can't take enough to obtain a laxative effect using this organic highly soluble and absorbable form: http://kirkmanlabs.com/ProductKirkman/1 ... llergenic/

jimmylegs, what is the most Mg you have taken (milligrams) at one time? I am curious about your Mg experience in that it is very different than mine.

hmm, maybe 600mg in a day max, and WAY back in the learning curve. would have been citrate, or even oxide (ugh!) back then.

I used to be REALLY depleted (low in the first place from bad diet, then made worse by unbalanced vit d3 intake) and it took me years to rebuild stores. i used to be able to feel a mag pill kick in when i took it, but now my dietary mag and my background levels are so good that 200mg per day from supplements is my max. and with glycinate, even 200 is pushing it sometimes. I have trouble with mag glycinate. it has always given me problems.

back story
2007, just learning about my negative mag/vit d3 interaction: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... tml#p30403
2010-11, figuring out how much is too much of a good thing: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... ml#p153097

ah yes, unbalanced vitamin D / Magnesium intake.

I took about 5000 iu vitamin D for about 2 years (I was real serious about preventing my MS from getting worse.) And that clever move left me quite deficient in Magnesium, but the doctors told me that my Magnesium was fine because they had given me a serum magnesium test and the results were "normal."

They didn't even think to test me for Mg: I had to ask them. But, back then, I believed that a result from a lab test that was "normal" meant that things were all good. How did I get so ignorant? Anyway, I've done a lot of research on magnesium over the past year or so and it has become painfully obvious to me that, if a serum Magnesium test comes back "normal," it means nothing other than the amount in the blood is normal. The other 99% of the Magnesium in the body is intracellular (inside of tissue cells such as muscle and bone cells.) The body will readily take Mg from tissues or filter out excess Mg through the kidneys to keep the level in the blood in the proper range.

Regarding Mg testing: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?ter ... clinicians

Early this year I got the Idea that maybe the vitamin D was what was keeping me from getting over the Mg deficiency that I had been taking lots of Mg for during the last several months. So I quit the vitamin D and in the next week things (primarily muscle spasms) got better. Then I took 2000 iu of vitamin D and it put me right back to where I was a week earlier. So no more vitamin D for me until this Mg problem clears up. I sure don't need vitamin D using up Mg in its conversion from inactive to active form.
Currently I take 400 mg of Albion Chelated TRS Magnesium on an empty stomach 3-4 times per day
and I soak my feet in Mg Chloride solution (5 cups of flakes/1 gallon water) for 2-4 hours per day.

I get no ill effects from this high level of Mg, I only feel better from it and worse when I don't do it.

I also take: 200 mcg - SeMSC Selenium / day
108mg - Benfotiamine / day
to help with cell retention and absorption.
Overall my symptoms have been slowly (too slowly) getting better.

My last serum Mg test:

Component Standard Range Your Value
MAGNESIUM 1.3 - 2.0 mEq/L 1.8

What else can I do to improve my Mg status ??

Thanks,
THX1138

exactly!

based on what your telling me and the timing, i'd say you might be okay high dosing glycinate for now but watch it once your stores are back up. it may take quite some time. I had been off the d3 megadose and working on rebuilding magnesium for *years* priot to introducing magnesium glycinate and having the associated delightful problems.

also, in spite of the % of total mag being low in serum, it is still very useful info but ONLY if you know the optimal range within the idiotic 'normal' range. ie go for 0.95-1.1 mmol/L ('normal' being .7-1.0) and it's okay be be a bit higher than 1.1 even though it's the top end of the 'normal' range. in one study I found, the healthy controls AVERAGE was 1.1 mmol/L, so that would seem to indicate that about half of those healthy controls had levels ABOVE 1.1.

Thanks.

Also, I really am not getting the conversion ratio for these Mg levels (mEq/L = mmol/L)

Okay, now I get it. I found this:


http://www.amamanualofstyle.com/page/si ... calculator

This page is for other lab results too.

my understanding is mEq/L * 0.5 = mmol/L

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scale ... _data.html

sorry took me a while to respond distracted by fb

Hey, you are fast and good. No problem