Magnesium Glycinate 3 in 1 (malate & citrate)

[Davidbaldbloke]

Hi,

should this help with sleep and RLS or does it make RLS worse?

Appreciate any thoughts.

Thank you

[Madlegs1]

They are all good for calming and helping sleep.👍

[Davidbaldbloke in reply to Madlegs1]

Thank you for your comment.

[Joolsg]

It certainly won't worsen RLS and it may help. Many people report that magnesium helps reduce severity of RLS.

[Davidbaldbloke in reply to Joolsg]

Ok thank you again for your help.

[Cure4RLS in reply to Joolsg]

Mag does make RLS worse for some people. I'm one of them

[Joolsg in reply to Cure4RLS]

That's very interesting.There are no studies confirming magnesium helps RLS.

But so many people swear by it. That's why I mention it if anyone asks for non meds options.

It's never helped my RLS.

You're the first person on here who has said it causes/worsens RLS.

We really are all very different.

Thanks.

[Cure4RLS in reply to Joolsg]

Sorry, I made a typo and didn't write that it makes my RLS WORSE. So much worse. I can't even drink electrolyte drinks with mag in them

[Cure4RLS in reply to Joolsg]

A few people in my in-person RLS group have said mag makes their RLS worse. All women. Wonder if there is a connection

[Cure4RLS in reply to Joolsg]

Many people who swear by it probably don't have RLS. They may have leg cramps or other leg issues. So many people don't know what RLS is. I like the person who said "If RLS was fixed by mag, there would be no RLS." No RLS docs recommend Mag because it doesn't work for RLS.

[Joolsg in reply to Cure4RLS]

It has never helped my RLS either.

[grassgree]

But don’t combine magnesium and gabapentin. There is a warning label on the package insert that antacids and any form of magnesium taken within two hours of gabapentin will reduce its effectiveness. From my experience it renders gabapentin mostly useless.

[Davidbaldbloke in reply to grassgree]

Thank you for your advice. I am on pregabalin so hopefully not an issue but thank you.

[grassgree in reply to Davidbaldbloke]

Check the instructions to be sure. Pregabalin and gabapentin are very similar in chemical structure.

[Davidbaldbloke in reply to grassgree]

ok will do . Thanks.

[nocturne]

I've tried all kinds of magnesium supplements, with no effect on my RLS. I then read a book on RLS that said, "If magnesium cured RLS, no one would have RLS," which was an "aha!" moment for me.

I also heard a radio show recently about the unregulated supplement industry in the US, and that supplements help only if we have a deficiency. In other words, get tested first and find out it you do have a deficiency before wasting money.

[Davidbaldbloke in reply to nocturne]

Interesting. Thank you very much much for this.

[intermk in reply to nocturne]

Same here - I've tried all the supplements docs have told me to use including potassium and magnesium glycinate. It's been 5 years since I began these two and even at max dose they seem to be useless. They don't help with RLS and don't help with insomnia. But I still take them because my doc that writes the Rx for buprenorphine requires me to take these in order to maintain the Bupr Rx. Fortunately it's not expensive and can't hurt - at least I don't think it will.

[Davidbaldbloke in reply to intermk]

ok thank you for this reply. Helpful.

[Clamire]

Hi David, I wonder what happened to you at age 54 that made your RLS go from 0 to 100? Were you prescribed statins? Calcium channel blockers? Metformin? PPIs? All these drugs (among others) can trigger or worsen symptoms in people who are pre-disposed to RLS.

You should take the 60mg of ferrous bisglycinate on an empty stomach about two hours before bed. If you have RLS symptoms when you take it you should feel your symptoms dissipate in about 1.5 hours…for one night RLS has much more to do with something called “serum iron” than “ferritin. “

Serum iron is this free floating iron in our blood that plummets at night (along with our brain’s pool of free floating dopamine) and we get RLS, at night. Iron is the grease and glue that keeps our genetically lousy D2 dopamine receptors chugging along. The oral iron will help to replace some of that serum iron that was swept away at night, per Mother Nature’s orders, in all humans. The non-RLS world is able to store iron in their brains and they don’t have any restless legs at night. We can’t store much at all so we rely very heavily on that free floating serum iron. The RLS brain is short on a protein called “H Ferritin.” There’s plenty of serum iron floating around our brains, as shown in clinical trials via testing RLS patients’ cerebral spinal fluid (we have even more “serum brain iron” than controls), but scary low levels of “brain ferritin.” That’s because our brains lack the protein, I mentioned before, that binds and stores some of that serum iron. The RLS “body” has no problem storing iron aka ferritin. Plenty of H Ferritin is produced in the RLS body. And no matter how high we get our “body ferritin” it will never enable us to store iron in our brains for a rainy day, or should I say night.

The iron at night trick is great and works for many on here, but if you’re on a drug like a calcium channel blocker, it won’t be enough to overcome the dopamine antagonism (and hence the RLS), caused by the drug.

Anyways, magnesium glycinate/citrate is always worth a shot. I used to tell people to only take it by day because it too is a mild dopamine antagonist and who wants that at night. But one too many people have come on here and indicated they get immediate relief from magnesium so maybe play around with it. Theoretically, since magnesium is a dopamine antagonist it should slowly but surely make our lousy dopamine receptors less lousy and our RLS better. That’s a BIG but, however.

You getting all this 🫣?

Potassium and calcium are natural dopamine agonists. Especially potassium, in high doses. I have to be on a PPI, so sometimes the iron at night isn’t enough so I run for the potassium and calcium in the form of an electrolyte solution called Ultima. Sometimes one scoop will due, sometimes I need two. Relief comes in about 30 minutes. This is NOT my favorite way to go, but desperate times calls for….

My recommendation to you, and anyone reading this, is to keep “layering” until you get relief, each and every night. Heck, throw an Advil at the RLS if the iron, magnesium (put an hour or two between these two) and potassium and calcium fail you. Never eat after dinner (an earlyish one at that) and many people (myself included) find sleeping flat on their stomach will relieve that last little bit of RLS.

Good luck and please, please keep us posted. It will help others if you do, even if none of these things work for you let us know.

[Davidbaldbloke]

Wow, a lot there and my head is spinning to be honest. I'm not on any other tablets other than pregabalin. I've tried magnesium many times and not found any benefit. It's also strange that some nights I get no RLS and other nights a lot for no reason or no change of diet. You mentioned '54'. I guess I first posted on here 8 years ago then as I am 62 now. Thanks for a very detailed reply.

[Clamire in reply to Davidbaldbloke]

Any sports/spinal injuries starting in your 50s? It matters not I guess. You already own ferrous bisglycinate and magnesium and if you’re into “the road less travelled” you can keep some bioavailable potassium, and/or calcium, in the house as a back up to the back up. In the military they say “two is one and one is none.”

I think it is important that we can all visualize what is going on in our brains. Let me draw you a picture. A common visual is that game where tennis balls are thrown at a sticky net. The balls represent that pool of chemical dopamine that is there in our brain waiting to get to the net (the net = our D2 dopamine receptors) and be converted into a neurotransmitter (the dopamine is more electrical than chemical after it passes through the net) and bounces from neuron to neuron down our spinal column (called the central nervous system) and makes its way to our arms and legs (called the peripheral nervous system) where it quiets our arms and legs. Ahhh!!!

Anyways, the “sticky net” is our D2 dopamine receptors, as I mentioned above. We have plenty of dopamine balls (less so at night) and we need each and every one of those balls because our net is LOUSY. The RLS net is small and not particularly sticky, but it’s all we got and seems to mostly work by day.

Iron, specifically “serum iron,” helps to keep the net up and sticky and iron is also part of the chemical make-up of the dopamine balls. Go iron!!! Serum iron plummets at night. Boooo!!! So this is important - dopamine and serum iron (not ferritin) drop at night. And when do we get RLS?

Ferritin does not plummet at night, as mentioned, or have any kind of real circadian rhythm. If body ferritin was a “major” player in the game, as some experts claim, then having low levels (ie in the 20s) should mean we have RLS 24/7, not just at night.

The DAs (dopamine agonists) are like taking a bat and hitting the balls at the net, rather than throwing them. The DAs really beat the net down. Faster than the maintenance crew can repair it, and hence over time, we end up with even lousier receptors than pre-DA. And pre-DA is pretty lousy.

Dopamine “antagonists” on the other hand (like melatonin, Benedryl, SSRIs, statins, calcium channel blockers, PPIs, HRT, magnesium, berberine), partially block those balls…some more than others. Less balls hitting the net, and more time for the maintenance crew to do their magic, means (theoretically) an improved sticky net (D2 receptors).

Following me???

Now potassium is really tough to explain, and I’m not in the medical field, and don’t understand all aspects. As far as I can tell, potassium affects the soup that the balls of dopamine are floating in. It kind of energizes the playing field so to speak. It opens up the calcium channels allowing more calcium in. Calcium has this polarizing effect that helps to draw the balls to the net, I believe. That’s why calcium channel blockers worsen RLS symptoms - they impede entry of calcium - that wonderful polarizing force. But hey, if you can stand the increased RLS symptoms those calcium channel blockers cause, you are giving your net a chance to rest and recuperate, I truly believe. Bottom line, potassium, a calcium channel OPENER, should (theoretically) improve the symptoms of RLS, shortly after ingesting it. Not sure if ever increasing doses of potassium are required to get relief? For that matter, I’m not even sure what high doses of potassium, over a long period, does to the net/ D2 receptors? People have come on here swearing by a banana before bed only to find it loses its effectiveness over time. Are their receptors just getting worse with age (as they most definitely do) or do these people simply need a higher dose of potassium than a single banana provides?

As you can imagine, taking oral calcium itself should also help get the balls to the net, but I’ve never read about scientists giving calcium to lab rats to evoke a release of dopamine. I have, however, consistently read about scientists using potassium to achieve this. I know calcium is a more polarizing mineral while potassium is a more reactive mineral. For whatever that’s worth? A combination of the two, maybe, as a back-up to the ferrous bisglycinate.

Lastly, as that dopamine neurotransmitter “drips” out of our brains (the non-RLS world has a stream) and down our spinal column, anything that impedes it movement in the spinal column (and possibly even injuries in the legs), can trigger or worsen symptoms of RLS. The non-RLS world has a stream, as I mentioned, and that stream pushes past any roadblock/inflammation in the spine (and legs). There is a point of no return- for everyone. I read that 100% of people with traumatic spinal cord injuries suffer RLS.

On that happy note…pleasant dreams.

EDIT: Magnesium is clearly more subtle than potassium and works in a different way. Day in, day out, week after week, it may maintain or even improve the net.

EDIT #2: I’m not sure why eating later at night is a trigger for several people on here, myself included. My best guess is eating lowers blood pressure which then closes calcium channels? Or taste buds give off calcium signals that close (or open) the channel? All relatively short lived and fractional, but we with RLS are dancing on the head of a pin so why risk it? Plus, Mother Nature and evolution really don’t want us eating much past sundown. So any of a million negative chemical reactions can occur when we eat too late at night.

EDIT #3: Sleeping on your stomach raises body temperature. Higher body temperature means more dopamine release. By the time you have a fever, you may not have RLS at all that night.

EDIT#4: Ignore everything I just wrote and concentrate on achieving the perfect gut microbiome. I truly believe the world of the very small are pulling the strings of the world of the very large. I think they can even override genes. Good luck going down this path 😱

Mic drop

[Cure4RLS in reply to Davidbaldbloke]

How long have you been on the pregabalin? Could it be making RLS worse? Pregab makes m RLS worse

[SueJohnson]

Don't forget if you are still taking iron to take magnesium 2 hours apart.

[Cure4RLS]

Magnesium DOES make RLS worse for some people. I'm one of them. All you can do is try it.