The creator of Dilbert blogs:
About two years ago I started taking magnesium supplements because I saw something on the Internet that indicated it might help my knees problems. (My knees always hurt after exercise.) The magnesium either worked, or it was a remarkable coincidence, that after 15 years of knee pain it suddenly went away and has stayed away.
Recently I realized I haven’t had any allergy or asthma symptoms for well over a year. For the first time in my life I went through the entire allergy season without so much as a sniffle or a wheeze. And I didn’t even use my allergy or asthma meds. On a hunch, I googled “magnesium allergy” and discovered that doctors sometimes use magnesium to treat asthma attacks. And a magnesium deficiency apparently does promote allergies.
One of the comments is curious: “There’s nothing wrong sharing what happens to you, Scott.”
Thanks to cp.
On a random, yet related note: I suffered a sports career ending knee injury as a younger man. A few years ago, against my doctor’s and others’ advice, I began doing barbell squats, in a matter of months my knee felt an order of magnitude better and I no longer experienced pain upon strong twisting/lateral type movements. I later learned from some olympic lifters, that squats (done properly) are excellent for rehabbing knees suffering from damage to the ligaments/tendons.
That’s fascinating. My knees also hurt after exercise and I have mild alergies. I also often have “restless legs” when trying to sleep, which a commenter at Scott’s blog reports are ameliorated by taking magnesium supplements. (All these conditions are mild and I haven’t been actively looking to fix them.) I’ll try magnesium supplements starting tomorrow and report back in a few weeks. It may be just confirmation bias etc.
But here’s the really fascinating thing. I just checked which foods are high in magnesium and this list has a surprisingly large overlap with my list of favourite foods. Did my tastes adjust in order for my body to get more magnesium? This suggests the following conjecture:
To identify which nutrients you might be chronically deficient in, look at which nutrients are present in higher-than-normal amounts in your favourite foods.
Does anyone have evidence to support/reject this?
Thanks so much for this! Most of my (very longstanding) knee pain has gone away and my knees are much more flexible since I started supplementing with magnesium 5 or 6 months ago. It never occurred to me that it was due to the magnesium since I had started taking it when I made a lot of changes switching from SLD to SLD plus low-carb. Mineral supplements are advised when on low-carb because of the diuretic effect of low-carb. I had assumed the reduction in my knee pain was the result of weight loss together with some positive effect of not consuming grains. It’s funny if it’s just the magnesium. Maybe someday I’ll know for sure.
When my wife experienced pre-term contractions during her 29th week of pregnancy, the doctor put her on a magnesium sulfate IV drip to stop them.
That is interesting. I’ll note that doing squats has helped my knees too.
I have had pain in my medial part of my knee for seven years. Knew exercise would help so I decided to use the elliptical machine since it hurt the least doing that exercise. Every day for four and a half weeks I was on that machine for 30 minutes to an hour everyday. Somewhere along the line the pain went away. I now do swats again with no pain. I can also play basketball without the pain I had before. I did not do any special pills or vitamins just the elliptical machine everyday. No longer do I get out of bed and feel that pain in the knee that I did for so many years especially after exercise. I also did leg stretches before and after which you should be doing anyway.
Thank you for all the information on how magnesium has helped each of you.
I also have alot of pain in my knees one I’ve had surgery on recently. So my question is how much magnesium does one need?
All your information has been so helpful. Looking forward to trying it myself. Especially something natural.
I have torn miniscus, torn tissue behind my right and left knees. The right is the worst. Surgery is scheduled for late January 2010. I want to know how much magnesium do I need to take. What is an elliptical exercise machine? I certainly can not do any squats at this time; I am a person that walked, rides a bike, exercise and roller skates. I can do barely nothing now.
Can someone steer me in the right direction? Thank you.