Friday, April 16, 2010

My left arm- I feel like I have already seen this movie

All along, I have thought NA/HNA- what is it anyway? Was just impacting my right arm, and most sites agree it impacts mainly the right arm and shoulders. But I always knew my left shoulder was just not as bad. Well, it seems to be changing of late. I had mentioned the ache I had a while back. That went away. But in its place I have been feeling tenderness in the biceps tendon.

This is a weed whacker issue also since I used it just the other day again. During use, and for a couple hours later it was OK. Then the tendon started to become inflamed and my arm was shaking during any use. And I now was having trouble lifting my arm at all. It started to feel all too familiar. And this was not so much how my arm and shoulder felt preceding my winging right scapula, but it was a similar sensation as I had preceding my thumb and index finger problems. And the ache I had also involved my thumb. This makes me wonder. And it makes me feel like I have to be more careful or I will end up with two hands that are not much good.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

More on Chelated Magnesium

Here is just a bit more about magnesium and the differences between chelated and regular.

For the regular non-chelated form, I was taking two capsules a day to get to the 600 mg total dosage they recommend. If I take that amount and get a typical absorption rate of 10% for the non-chelated magnesium, I end up with a total absorption of 60 mg and a wasted amount of 540 mg left to cause havoc with my lower digestive tract.

For the chelated form I now have, it has a total of 150 mg of elemental magnesium per capsule. Right off you might think it is a bad idea since you would have to take four to get to 600 mg. But wait. If your typical absorption rate is 40% for the chelated form, you can get by with taking only one capsule to get to that 60 mg dosage. That leaves you with only 90 mg of wasted magnesium in your digestive system. It is still wasted, but it is so much less than the amount wasted with the non-chelated forms.

And there is another difference. With the non-chelated form I always had just a slight residual of symptoms at times. The tremor initially was gone completely, but the twitches were always there just in the background. If I could have done so, I would have tried just a bit more magnesium. But I was already at the recommended dosage and I did not want to push it any higher for obvious reasons. With the chelated form, I am just taking the one capsule a day and it is totally controlling the twitches. And that slide backwards I had mentioned just previous to this entry is reversed. So maybe the absorption is a bit better than 40% or the absorption of my non-chelated form was a bit less than the 10% rate I was assuming.

Chelated is better. Don’t waste your time on anything less than that.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Regular vs. chelated Magnesium

Recently as mentioned it seems I had hit a plateau as far as how magnesium was helping me long term and that maybe I had actually started a slow decline off of that previous level. And as ever I have done in the past, I started wondering why. It occurred to me that maybe it was the type of magnesium I was taking. I was taking just a run of the mill magnesium at around 600 mg daily.

This is beneficial in the short term since I really was down on the magnesium input to my system. But, the type of magnesium at that dosage was also making my digestive system have problems that may in fact have been stopping absorption of other foods, and the magnesium I needed. Enter chelated magnesium.

It turns out that no matter how much my natural food store employees were trying to tell me I had already had chelated magnesium, they were wrong. I just had regular unadulterated elemental magnesium which has an absorption rate of no better than 4% while a chelated form can be absorbed at close to 40%. After the switch, it already seems that I feel better again. In order to be chelated, it has to have it on the label. And even though chelated forms appear to be lower in total dosage, you get more of it.

From http://www.restlesslegsyndromecure.com/cause.html which talks about restless leg syndrome. . .

“Magnesium causes relaxation of the muscles in the entire body including the legs. A lack of Magnesium causes the muscles of the legs to tense up. So the solution is to take Magnesium. Make sure to take a Magnesium that is easily absorbed. Take Magnesium Glycinate or Magnesium that is chelated (the absorption rate is 40%). Do NOT take Magnesium Oxide (the absorption rate is only 4%). Take 400 mg/day - 1000 mg/day of Magnesium being careful to spread it out over the entire day. The Magnesium may cause loose stools since it relaxes the muscles of the intestine. So if you get loose stools just cut back on the dose of Magnesium. The Magnesium will relax the muscles of the leg and reduces the urge to move your legs. Typically, health food stores have a high quality Magnesium. The common run of the mill department store magnesium is magnesium oxide and will NOT be absorbed.”

Monday, April 12, 2010

The other shoulder

Off and on recently I have had things going on with what had been my un-impacted left shoulder. I say un-impacted even though my left scapula does show sign of slight winging. What has been happening is that I feel a dull ache from my scapula that feels like it is traveling down my arm to my left thumb. During these times, my arm is about useless even though the pain is not what I would call bad in any way. At least it is not bad compared to what I know it could be.

So, I am not sure what it means, if anything. I have had no pain recently in the left side of my neck. But, I do continue to have left sided headaches periodically, as I have had since this all started in 2006. I know my doctors would just say it is due to overuse. But, what should I do about that?