Migraine

After my ER visit back on Wednesday where among a couple of other things I got 2 grams of Magnesium sulfate by iv, I haven't had a migraine yet. 3 whole days...with only a few hints of a maybe that never turned into one.

I take 500mg of Mg by mouth every day. Is this nowhere near enough? Opinions? There is of course no guarantee that the BIG dose into my bloodstream is actually what's responsible. It just makes me wonder. (I'm a chemistry prof for a community college- so the scientist part of my brain likes theories.)

Amy

Oral magnesium as a preventative measure and IV magnesium to help abort a migraine are two completely different ballgames, the way I understand it. I don't think there's an "equivalency" between the two.

My migraine specialist ordered an intracellular magnesium level test. The result showed my level was low normal, and he wants me to have magnesium IV's to get it up higher. I've been on oral magnesium for about a year and a half. My specialist says that if there's an intracellular magnesium deficiency, it's pretty hard to get the level up where it needs to be with oral magnesium. Hence the IV's. He said they would be more frequent at first, then I would seek one out when I sensed I needed one.

Well, the mag sulfate was IV and most of the oral mag that I've found is mag oxide so a different salt form AND it's got to be dissolved in the gut and absorbed by the body and into the bloodstream so who knows how much of the magnesium part of it actually gets to our brain? SOOOOO, from a pharmacy standpoint, you are comparing sour granny smith apples with sweet red delicious. Both apples but really different varieties. I should know how to do the comparison and I'm sure there is somewhere to look it up, but I haven't been up to it. I've just taken 500mg of plain mag (250 twice a day) and I think 133 mixed in with my Calcium/mag/D tab twice a day, though I think someone here said the calcium kind of cancels out the mag.

HA, But I do know that cymbalta and nortriptryline cancel out the laxative effect of all that mag. So maybe I can increase that mag by a little bit myself as I increase the nortriptyline, which seems to be helping my headaches. Finally after a year of tinkering with different preventatives, I'm now on the great handful that seem to be working! Now if I could just stay awake a decent amount of the day.....

Diane

My lastest visit (yesterday) to my beloved accupuncturist- we discussed Magnesium. He suggested upping my dose to 1000 mg a day, and see if it helps at all. He has one patient that takes 1800. I noticed that Teri takes 1500.

1800mgs of Mag?! Wow,...um... Suffice it to say, I'd never leave the bathroom.