Magnesium for RLS

carolsond · Post by **carolsond** » Sat May 22, 2010 8:34 pm

Hi!

Has anyone taken magnesium for RLS? I heard it can be helpful for it.

Sincerely,

Carol Ann

bekull · Post by **bekull** » Sat May 22, 2010 9:58 pm

I have. I tried it for about three months. I didn't notice any difference and stopped. Everybody's different and if you try it I hope it helps you.

Post by **ViewsAskew** » Sat May 22, 2010 10:28 pm

CarolAnn, studies show it's not successful, but some people find it so. My guess is that if you're low, it may help. Same for niacin, B12, and any other vitamin or mineral (including iron). Try it and see. As with bekull, it has never helped me, though it can be helpful with the constipation issues caused by the opioids.

I haven't seen improvement by increasing my iron, either. I've gone from a low of 8 (ferritin) to 38. I hope the next time it's even higher. But, so far, no reduction.

Oddly, the only non-pharma substance that has helped me is L-Tyrosine. But, it creates augmentation if I take it regularly. It works much like Mirapex for me. But, I know others have tried it and it hasn't done a thing.

Post by **badnights** » Sun May 23, 2010 10:25 pm

On another board there's a guy who swears Mg stopped his RLS, which was severe. He takes 600 mg daily. I decided to try it and I've been taking 600 mg Mg daily for a little over a month now. I haven't noticed any difference. At first I slept better, now I'm sleeping worse and my RLS is breaking thru my drugs. I suspect the Mg is doing nothing for me. But this guy sounds like a reasonable sensible person and is still largely RLS-free since he started Mg; he takes a Tylenol 3 now and again, that's all.

So maybe his RLS was caused by something different than causes mine.

Post by **ViewsAskew** » Sun May 23, 2010 11:17 pm

He's probably low in some way to start with.

Or, it could be one of the variants; the more they study it, the more genes they find. Who's to say that some sub-variant isn't helped by it?

Or, it could be placebo effect.

Whatever it is, it works for him, so good for him. I hope it continues to for a long time. Problem is that most of these things that really do seem to help some people don't seem to help the majority. I guess it's just trial and error non-pharma or it's pharma.