Have you seen any improvements taking magnesium supplements?

I took magnesium and noticed a marked reduction in restless leg syndrome.

@Kayak8 That is very interesting to me. Did you take it specifically for that ailment? Do you also take vitamin D for it? My doctor suggested the magnesium to help absorb the D or something. The vitamin D has made an amazing difference with my muscle troubles (pain, cramping, weakness, shaky). What exactly were your symptoms with restless leg? And, was it really only confined to your legs? Or, other muscle groups also?

Livestrong Advice

Not sure why your M.D. would recommend something you are not lacking in.

@_Whitetigress Your link was very helpful. Some of my complaints are exactly what your link talks about. Maybe she feels getting the number a little higher might help, or just that it is worth a try, because I am still fairly far from my magnesium being high.

Vitamin D they changed the normal range years ago, because it was found the lower normal ranges were not therapeutic for the body according to some studies. There is still disagreement about vitamin D though among medical doctors. The old recommendation was 400 IU’s a day. Now many doctors advise 6,000 a day. I saw a doctor on the Dr. Oz show recommend 8,000, but he also said with all his recommendations to get blood levels checked periodically. I never hear Dr. Oz say that about the supplements he recommends, and I can’t understand why he doesn’t. If he did check he would see his recommendation for D probably is not a enough the majority of the time. Oz recommends 2,000 IU’s daily. But, my guess is he is not regularly testing his patients. Anyway, I think the bottom number for D is 32 in the normal range, and I start feeling better when I get up over 40, most information advises to be much higher.

My doctor, she is an endocrinologist, probably has had some feedback from patients I am guessing where she has seen improvements. I know that is a not a scientific study, but her recommendations would be based on some science I am sure. From what I can tell she reads up on these things and then really watches her patients for results and monitors their levels. She is the only doctor I know who asks me how I am feeling while looking at lab results, to really try to match up where I am at at that moment. Blood tests are done the week before I see her so they can be discussed at the appointment. Mostly we are following my thyroid more than anything, but the D seems to be an incredible help with my muscle pain.

After these two answers I am going to try the magnesium. Thanks.

Why did your MD recommend it?

@Rarebear We were discussing how I have to take so much vitamin D to get my numbers up, and that my muscle pain and weakness is much improved now that the levels are higher, but still has room for improvement. That’s when she recommended the magnesium. My impression was she though it would help the D levels, maybe absorption, but honestly I could have interpreted that wrong in retrospect, and she may have recommended in addition to the D because of my symptoms.

I only recently narrowed down how much the D helps me, because previously I was correcting too many things, iron and thyroid also being off. She had checked my magnesium the last time I was in very very bad pain, and hadn’t suggested taking it (it was a normal) but my D level had gone way down. I had stopped taking the prescription D, because we decided to try and maintain my level with OTC, since I was up to near 50. I hadn’t taken enough to maintain the level and it had plummeted. I went back on the script and the number came back up to above 30 and has proven to be a big improvement. I have now added taking the script plus 4,000 IU 5 days a week. I am going to switch to the script every other week I think and $6,000 a day OTC. The script is great for vacations because it’s once a week. And, I sometimes question if the vitamins OTC really have as much vitamin as they claim? Is that regulated well? But, the consesus is D3 is better to take than D2. My doctor has been pushing me to try to switch back to OTC D3 also at a higher dose than we tried last time and get off the prescription. I’m so symptomatic, I want to do it in stages and see where the numbers are going.

I’m going to try the magnesium, see what happens. Right now the D is sort of steady I think, and I can gauge how the magnesium makes me feel hopefully. I’ll check to make sure it doesn’t go too high with blood work.

I don’t know much about vitamin D treatment nor I do I know the data on it. I do know that vitamins and supplements are not regulated so OTC stuff can be iffy. I also don’t know the data on mag supplementation.

@Rarebear The OTC problem bothers me. Thanks for coming onto the Q.