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So I got my blood work back and surprisingly everything is at pretty good levels. The only thing it seems I need to do is take more b12, maybe not eating red meat has been the reason for that.

Vit d is 61 pg/ml

magnesium is 2.0 mg/dl

b12 is 472 pg/ml

Calcium, testosterone, cholesterol, protein, potassium, all are in proper ranges.

they did not do zinc even though I specifically asked for it.

Could this attribute to the reason this has been fairy "mild" so far for me?

...... Thoughts? Other things I should have tested?

hey there, vit d does look good. high, even. remind me if you've been supplementing d3?

2.0 is NO GOOD for serum magnesium... serum levels like 2.2 and 2.3 have been proposed as lower cutoffs, and healthy control mean levels go as high as 2.7 mg/dl.

what's the result for potassium, iima?

as for other tests, i'd follow up on the zinc if you can - was it on the requisition and the lab missed it? or would you need a whole new requisition?

i'd see if you can address the mag and b12 levels, plus get the zinc result before looking further. you could see if you can get your daily dietary magnesium intake up to 600mg, and if not, find a good magnesium glycinate supplement to touch up (you may already know that the form is *very* important - not all mag pills are created equal). personally i've been using 'orange' brand lately. 180mg elemental magnesium per capsule. good stuff!

I do take vit d every day. Have been ever since the second optic neuritis kicked in back in october of last year.

The zinc was not done because it said no suitable specimen received. Could they have run out of blood to use?

potassium is 4.5 mmol/l

I dont even know where to begin with what I should take or eat to get the levels up. I eat a banana every single day along with many other fruits and veggies. I am about to buy a juicer to juice even more veggies every day.

If you take too much magnesium do we pee it out or is it something to careful with? And b 12?

Thanks again, you are the best!

ok i'm assuming you're on d3 as opposed to d2, and can you tell me how much per day you take?

i would follow up on the zinc for sure. could have been a handling error. can you just take that report back to the lab and get a retry?

i'll see if i can find a post i wrote before, with a potassium target.

re magnesium - it's challenging to get enough from diet and most supplemental forms are poorly absorbed and go right through you anyway. so, carry on eating and if you need a supplement to get up to 600mg per day, then choose magnesium glycinate.

the only fatalities i've read about with magnesium are people overdosing via enema. forewarned, forearmed.

you don't have to be too careful with b12 either. just don't take high levels (eg levels higher than you'd get in say a b50 or b100-complex) of b12 in the morning over the long term. messes with circadian rhythm.

here's a good list of magnesium-rich healthy foods. look at the mgs per serving, and aim for 600mg per day. you can just start working on building them into the daily routine and figuring out how much per day is realistic for you, and supplement the balance if you need to. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... #foodchart

Awesome thanks. I can probably get to 600 without any issues just eating.

I take d3. I have little gels that are 2000 iu and I take anywhere from 1 to 3 of them. But I also realized these calcium chews I take also have vit d. I never was strict with them but I took at least 1 a day.

That's an awesome website. I am going to use that website a lot and figure out what juices I can do to get the nutrients from now on.

Youarethecure wrote:If you take too much magnesium do we pee it out or is it something to careful with?

I found high doses of magnesium to make me much worse. I took 800 mg/day of either, or a combination of, magnesium citrate and magnesium glycinate. I did this for a week and it made my leg muscles very weak. It was similar to a relapse. I recommend avoiding high doses of magnesium. I now take 200 mg in the morning and then take my 2000 IU of vitamin D3 in the evening.

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/natural-a ... ml#p219584

yes i had the same weakness issues with higher levels of supplements - thanks for the reminder NHE - and i suspect it's because my diet is already high in magnesium and i just don't need that much additional mag via the supplement route. some sources say to try for as much as 1200mg per day of magnesium but i would be a puddle if i took that much as a supplement and i would never eat enough food in a day to hit that mark.

if you focus on diet and 600mg a day you should be fine for your body's requirements.

i'd still suggest you get a mag supplement in the picture because of the daily vit d3 and calcium combo. supplemental d3 is a magnesium hog, and if you push calcium up, it pushes magnesium down. if you do pick up a mag glycinate supplement i would suggest you take 100mg at the same time as the d3, and let your diet take care of the rest of your body's magnesium needs. i personally avoid calcium supplements. the weakness associated with excess magnesium is linked to its effect on calcium. calcium is needed to contract muscles, magnesium blocks it. that's why you'll see me go straight to magnesium when anyone mentions anything to do with muscles being cramped or tight or spastic etc.

that web site is great isn't it i'll show you some other great stuff too but for right now must go deal with something on the stove

I think what I am going to do is a multi vitamin every morning with zinc tablets as well.

At night I am going to do d3 and magnesium supplements.

Then, during the day I am going to juice juice juice and juice. Are you also familiar with juicing? Any combinations I should avoid or go high on?

that sounds like a decent plan make sure you don't pick any old zinc or magnesium - for the zinc, go with a 50mg zinc citrate balanced with 2mg copper. for the mag, go for magnesium glycinate. i used to get the one by kirkman labs but recently switched to 'orange' brand.
also, AOR multi basics is pretty awesome. (i used to get the better one but it had too much stuff in it and made my feet super smelly!)

i'm not a juicer myself, but it's a good idea. i'd just try to get a mix of colours and types (eg leaves, roots, berries etc) plus balance pro and anti inflammatory ingredients. also, even though i loooove the greens, i think kale is the one that would be the safest to have in higher volumes raw. certainly you could put some spinach in the juicer, just not too much raw.

spinach and swiss chard are more nutrient dense than kale, but to consume in high volumes you need to get rid of the oxalic acid anad that means boiling. chard needs to be boiled 3 mins, and spinach you boil it for one min. then you can eat a cup or two without worrying about too much oxalic acid.

what other kinds of food do you plan to eat?

I think magnesium oil might be a good alternative to oral magnesium. Check this out:

http://drsircus.com/medicine/magnesium/ ... nesium-oil

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Minerals- ... ewpoints=1

you can make magnesium oil by dissolving mag chloride flakes in water. there's a recipe posted here somewhere, it's likely searchable. i made some myself, but i wasn't a fan.

The rest of my diet is probably going to stay the same as I eat now.

Breakfast is a protein shake, one banana, and usually one or two other pieces of different fruit. Along with a decent serving of almonds.

Lunch can be anything from turkey meatballs, turkey meat sauce with a little pasta, shrimp salad, grass fed organic chicken salad or a plate of chicken with veggies.

Dinner (depending on lunch) will be either chicken with veggies or something I did not eat for lunch. I also eat wild caught fish 4-6 times a week. I have a whole case of wild caught red snapper I ordered through my work. I also throw pork into the mix for dinners every now and then.

Now, I do tend to cheat probably about twice a week but never anything horrible. I don't eat fried food, I limit my dairy and I rarely do red meat. My biggest flaw is my sweet tooth!!

sounds great! hopefully you'll work nice big servings of cooked chard and spinach into 2 - 3 dinners per week.

you might want to keep an eye on the inflammation balance of your routine and just make sure your overall score each day is at least +100.

http://inflammationfactor.com/look-up-if-ratings/ (note that lots of other sites have copied these numbers and used them elsewhere, but this is the site that issues those ratings so if there are any changes over time, they'll show up here first).

the IF rating system does NOT mean that foods with negative scores are automatically bad. for example, bananas have a negative score and they're obviously good for you. depending on what the other fruits are and how many almonds, that breakfast could go either way in terms of IF.

just means that a balanced diet should have more anti-inflammatory foods than pro inflammatory ones. there are lots of good things about foods that are pro-inflammatory, so don't cut them altogether.. it's really just about balance.

Wow, I have been waiting for a site like that!!! Thank you so much that's awesome.

no worries