Magnesium Self-Experiments

my own anecdotal experience with magnesium : i was generally prone to leg cramps even when young that usually subsides when i take salty water. i had developed hyperthroidism in late 90s that was treated eventually with radio-iodide. subsequently i went into hypothyroid state. soon after was a violent cramps episode which became regular that even if i took few hundred steps my legs would start cramping up. A steep descent into quality of life had me try many many tests as the initial suspicion was some kind of clot. Quite painful nerve conduction velocity tests were done. I was the subject of academic curiosity at stanford hospital. I was on codeine and other pain medications. After a year of this, one day happened to talk to a regular doctor (no specialization), who treats patients from asian subcontinent. He said that i may have magnesium deficiency which was apparently common for my ethnic background. Since by that time i had tried everything, this was an easy choice. Just a couple of weeks in with cal-mag citrate (400mg/day), felt something different in my legs and the whole nigthmare just lifted. I was able to return to hikes etc and would only occasionally need magnesium. It has been 2 decades since, and i dont take magnesium anymore and do strenous workouts and never again triggered any cramps episode.

Increasingly hard to get Mg tablets without Vitamin B and so increasingly easy to get excess B12. Australian formulations of magnesium sold by Swisse don&#x27;t have B. The same branding in HK does. I wrote to them about it, interesting response: &quot;check the therapeutic goods administration site for canonical ingredients we don&#x27;t commit to labelling the jar&quot; they do list the neutral filler and Mg they just don&#x27;t say &quot;no B12&quot;<p>B is typically included for synergistic uptake reasons I believe.<p>Excess B12 is really bad. Neuropathy. Considering you take Mg to get rid of muscle cramps (pain, conducted by nerves), a bit ironic. It&#x27;s increasingly common in Australia now.<p>Excess Mg is unlikely. I think the body chucks it out in Urine pretty rapidly. I still take it, the cramps after sport return within a few months when I stop. I have a fruit and veg rich diet, I get plenty of natural Mg and K which is also good for muscle cramps. Age related insufficiency I suspect (63) malabsorption comes with age.

Some more anecdata: magnesium greatly reduces annoying muscle twitches for me. I get them quite frequently when I don&#x27;t take magnesium for a while. Magnesium citrate is easily available here, without added vitamin b6. No side effects from what I&#x27;ve observed over the years.

Always love to see a Gwern article on the front page. I threw some cash his way for changing my life over a decade ago with his page on spaced repetition, and more recently for his page on using pure nicotine to form other habits.

Magnesium — cheap &amp; plain-as-possible magnesium pills — are a great laxative. I suspect that this has follow-on psychological effects. All the expensive pills are just to <i>avoid</i> the laxative effect. No further benefit. So if you think a good dump contributes to your wellbeing, consider the plain stuff.

My understanding is that the human body stores magnesium, said stores sufficient for approximately 30 days. As such, daily magnesium is far less important that the 30 day moving average.

&gt; There are no published human trials as of October 2015<p>This has changed: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC9786204&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC9786204&#x2F;</a><p>Notably, though, their results indicate effects on cognition and memory, which the OP&#x27;s experiments don&#x27;t seem to address.

Another thing why magnesium oxide could not be the optimal compound for you: It&#x27;s a laxative. That might be good to know before you start daily supplementation. Personally, I have bisglycinate.

I struggled with sleep for years and years. If I exercised the insomnia would be the worst. Lately I&#x27;ve figured out that magnesium and B6 (p5p form) are the missing piece I have needed. I&#x27;ve been taking magnesium for a long time, but B6 finally allowed me to actually experience improved sleep after exercise.

Refer to Magnesium-based Lifeform from Disco Elysium, it is very accurate.

I always had cramps no matter how much magnesium I took. It wasn&#x27;t until I went low carb that cramps dissapeared, even without taking magnesium.

This is great and all but how can you objectively measure something like &quot;mood&quot; or &quot;productivity&quot;?<p>There are a lot of variables, even in your day to day work activities (e.g. you never debug &amp; implement a fix for the <i>exact same</i> bug twice...one bug might be a satisfying and enjoyable activity, another might be a frustrating, difficult, and tedious pain in the ass)<p>I&#x27;ve done similar trials with magnesium glcyinate and personally not noticed any difference. But then I have not found any way to accurately measure differences between what a &quot;good day&quot; is Vs a &quot;bad day&quot;. Even without supplementing, it feels like dice roll at the best of times

An aspect missing from the article and comments here is that magnesium is also available as a topical application. I have some in a spray that I can apply to my knees before bed, we also get some from a local source in a cream base for massaging into muscles. That lets you focus the application without dosing your entire system with it.

Just some input on Magnesium Chloride for me. I have found it is the best for me as Chloride has no “effects” of its own, unlike things like Glycinate. Glycinate is good if it works for you, but I get wired and can’t sleep. I take citrate-based supplements for Calcium and Potassium, but mag citrate causes a lot of GI distress for me. None with chloride.<p>The bad thing? Mag Chloride is highly hydroscopic. You really can’t make it into a pill or they get all weird and goopy. So to get Mag Chloride you have to get it in a liquid form and it is moderately expensive. Worse than the expense, it tastes positively horrid. Still, it has the best impact on my sleep than other forms, so take that for what it is worth.

Those charts aren&#x27;t very clear; given that GGPlot is already on the scene it&#x27;d probably pay dividends to bin the data in some form. I&#x27;d be starting with geom_boxplot grouped by week myself. Trying to interpret that sort of wild squiggling in the 2nd plot is not the path to happiness.

I have similar experiences to gwern with mag, surprisingly easy to overdose leading to a less than optimal state. After 25 years of messing with supplements I&#x27;ve settled on just thiamine and b12 with any regularity, and only inject-able at that.

Magnesium solved my muscle tightness, and insomnia.<p>These are the products that work for me: Magnesium Lysinate Glycinate from Doctor&#x27;s Best, and Magnesium Taurate from Double Wood.

Is anyone aware of an app that can facilitate these types of experiments ?<p>Ideal features:<p><pre><code> Notification to self report things such as mood, quality of sleep. Tracking of custom activities&#x2F;actions (whether you worked out, drunk, or whatever) Data export in csv :)</code></pre>

I&#x27;ve been advised that Magnesium supplementation improves the efficacy of ibuprofen and acetaminophen in treating tension headaches by my physician.

These &quot;self experiments&quot; all feel like an elaborate ruse to validate their substance abuse.