Mary
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@Countrygirl, @Gondwanaland, @Learner1 (I’m tagging you because I’ve corresponded with all of you re sleep), I’ve done several posts about sleep and think I have finally found the Holy Grail. It feels too good to be true but it’s been 3 weeks now. I recently had a hair analysis done which showed that my calcium/magnesium ratio was very badly skewed in favor of calcium, and it recommended I stop my calcium and vitamin D supplements, at least temporarily, which I did. And then on my own I added in more magnesium and switched it up so that I was taking all my magnesium at night - after dinner, before bed and in the middle of the night. And immediately I started sleeping better. The hair analysis report said that insomnia characterized by the ability to initially fall asleep but then to wake up and have trouble sleeping thereafter (which is me) is associated with magnesium deficiency. This was new information to me - why don’t doctors know this?!
I was taking what I thought were adequate amounts of calcium and magnesium but doing a couple of things wrong. One, I was taking them together and didn’t realize that was not a good idea. Also, I now believe the magnesium supplement I was taking was an inferior product. In any event, it was too much calcium in relation to magnesium and I should have been taking the bulk of the magnesium at night.
My levels of calcium and magnesium on the hair analysis were not that extreme - calcium was in the low-normal range, and my magnesium was at the bottom of the normal range. It would never go up. But the ratio was the problem.
So I started taking 200 mg mag glycinate after dinner, 400 mg before bed and 200 to 400 mg more in the middle of the night. Yeah, that’s a lot and now I’m cutting back, but it worked. So last night I took 100 mg with dinner, 400 before bed and 200 middle of the night. I will probably cut it a little more, but am going slowly with this.
However, my BP has gone up a bit and I’m starting to get more tired and achy and have added in a little calcium in the morning and that is helping. So it’s a balancing act.
Also, I seem to need more phosphorous as well (refeeding syndrome). My phosphorous got depleted when I added in B1 and I think the same thing has happened with the magnesium..
I don’t have easy access to nutritional testing. I’m going by symptoms and muscle testing but I am sleeping better than I have been in over 20 years.
I was on first 0.5 mg and then 1 mg. lorazepam in the middle of the night for 10 years for sleep. I started tapering off of it 1-1/2 years ago after I learned that benzos are linked to Alzheimer’s, got completely off of it a year ago, and my sleep has been hellish ever since I started the taper a year and a half ago. And actually it was getting worse recently, instead of better. So this is like a miracle for me. I really didn’t know what to do. The doctors had no answers. But I was getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night and didn’t know how long I could go on that way. And I have a very low tolerance for drugs, which aren’t the answer anyways! I did try trazodone which helped a little at one time but left me tired and drugged, and Baclofen, which made me spacey but didn’t do much for my sleep.
I’m also taking 5-htp, melatonin, glycine, inositol, niacin and l-theanine.
My former doctor (who died a few years ago) used to do a hair analysis every year, but he never looked at the ratios, only the levels of minerals - he was extremely knowledgeable but didn’t know this.
Here’s the on-line company I used to get the testing done, and I was very happy with them and their service: https://hairanalysisreport.com/order-hair-analysis/ - I ordered TEI Profile 2 which included a written analysis from Trace Elements, and a phone consult with the company Hair Analysis Report. It cost more to get the report with the analysis from TE but was so well worth it, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out on my own. I selected testing done by Trace Elements lab because it’s the lab my doctor used.
I was taking what I thought were adequate amounts of calcium and magnesium but doing a couple of things wrong. One, I was taking them together and didn’t realize that was not a good idea. Also, I now believe the magnesium supplement I was taking was an inferior product. In any event, it was too much calcium in relation to magnesium and I should have been taking the bulk of the magnesium at night.
My levels of calcium and magnesium on the hair analysis were not that extreme - calcium was in the low-normal range, and my magnesium was at the bottom of the normal range. It would never go up. But the ratio was the problem.
So I started taking 200 mg mag glycinate after dinner, 400 mg before bed and 200 to 400 mg more in the middle of the night. Yeah, that’s a lot and now I’m cutting back, but it worked. So last night I took 100 mg with dinner, 400 before bed and 200 middle of the night. I will probably cut it a little more, but am going slowly with this.
However, my BP has gone up a bit and I’m starting to get more tired and achy and have added in a little calcium in the morning and that is helping. So it’s a balancing act.
Also, I seem to need more phosphorous as well (refeeding syndrome). My phosphorous got depleted when I added in B1 and I think the same thing has happened with the magnesium..
I don’t have easy access to nutritional testing. I’m going by symptoms and muscle testing but I am sleeping better than I have been in over 20 years.
I was on first 0.5 mg and then 1 mg. lorazepam in the middle of the night for 10 years for sleep. I started tapering off of it 1-1/2 years ago after I learned that benzos are linked to Alzheimer’s, got completely off of it a year ago, and my sleep has been hellish ever since I started the taper a year and a half ago. And actually it was getting worse recently, instead of better. So this is like a miracle for me. I really didn’t know what to do. The doctors had no answers. But I was getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night and didn’t know how long I could go on that way. And I have a very low tolerance for drugs, which aren’t the answer anyways! I did try trazodone which helped a little at one time but left me tired and drugged, and Baclofen, which made me spacey but didn’t do much for my sleep.
I’m also taking 5-htp, melatonin, glycine, inositol, niacin and l-theanine.
My former doctor (who died a few years ago) used to do a hair analysis every year, but he never looked at the ratios, only the levels of minerals - he was extremely knowledgeable but didn’t know this.
Here’s the on-line company I used to get the testing done, and I was very happy with them and their service: https://hairanalysisreport.com/order-hair-analysis/ - I ordered TEI Profile 2 which included a written analysis from Trace Elements, and a phone consult with the company Hair Analysis Report. It cost more to get the report with the analysis from TE but was so well worth it, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out on my own. I selected testing done by Trace Elements lab because it’s the lab my doctor used.