Magnesium - Sugar - Headaches

[squanch]

A while ago I made a post about me having constant headaches after eating large amounts of honey daily for a few months. The headaches would get worse whenever I ate sugar (the source didn't really matter). They weren't nearly as bad with starch as my only carb source but still there.

Anyway, after lots of experimentation I finally found out that supplemental magnesium would completely get rid of my headaches. It seems like those enormous quantities of honey daily depleted my magnesium stores.

I use oral magnesium chloride to bowel tolerance and also apply it topically once a day. Despite a lot of claims online that topical magnesium chloride can't be absorbed through the skin, I found it to be the most effective way to prevent these sugar headaches. Actually, oral magnesium alone never did anything for me.

Ray said that thyroid hormone and salt both help the body retain magnesium. I am taking NDT again and also upped my salt intake a little bit.

I can eat moderate amounts of fruit again now without any problems. If I go overboard with the sugar, the headaches will slowly start to creep back in though.


So now to my actual questions:

It seems like sugar requires a lot more magnesium to be processed than starch does. Why is that?

From what I've read, it can take quite a while to completely replete the body's stores of cellular magnesium. What can I do to speed up the process? Would asking my doctor for intravenous magnesium be a good idea? What other lifestyle related things help retain magnesium and prevent the wasting of it?

I would like to incorporate some more natural sources of magnesium into my diet. It seems like most sources have to many downsides nutritionally to be eaten in larger amounts daily though.
How do people like the hadza tribe manage to eat those large amounts of honey without the extra need for supplemental magnesium? Do they eat some secret magnesium berries? Maybe they just waste less magnesium due to lower stress hormones?

 

[hmac]

A while ago I made a post about me having constant headaches after eating large amounts of honey daily for a few months. The headaches would get worse whenever I ate sugar (the source didn't really matter). They weren't nearly as bad with starch as my only carb source but still there.

Anyway, after lots of experimentation I finally found out that supplemental magnesium would completely get rid of my headaches. It seems like those enormous quantities of honey daily depleted my magnesium stores.

I use oral magnesium chloride to bowel tolerance and also apply it topically once a day. Despite a lot of claims online that topical magnesium chloride can't be absorbed through the skin, I found it to be the most effective way to prevent these sugar headaches. Actually, oral magnesium alone never did anything for me.

Ray said that thyroid hormone and salt both help the body retain magnesium. I am taking NDT again and also upped my salt intake a little bit.

I can eat moderate amounts of fruit again now without any problems. If I go overboard with the sugar, the headaches will slowly start to creep back in though.


So now to my actual questions:

It seems like sugar requires a lot more magnesium to be processed than starch does. Why is that?

From what I've read, it can take quite a while to completely replete the body's stores of cellular magnesium. What can I do to speed up the process? Would asking my doctor for intravenous magnesium be a good idea? What other lifestyle related things help retain magnesium and prevent the wasting of it?

I would like to incorporate some more natural sources of magnesium into my diet. It seems like most sources have to many downsides nutritionally to be eaten in larger amounts daily though.
How do people like the hadza tribe manage to eat those large amounts of honey without the extra need for supplemental magnesium? Do they eat some secret magnesium berries? Maybe they just waste less magnesium due to lower stress hormones?

RP quotes a study in one of his articles where people were fed a mineral deficient diet but those who were consuming the most fructose still ended up with a positive mineral balance which he attributed to improved bone density. This suggests that he is of the opinion that sugar should help the body retain magnesium, and if it is true that thyroid help the body retain magnesium then sugar should aid this retention by its pro-thyroid action.

It's possible that magnesium can alleviate the headaches without it's paucity having been a cause of them. Perhaps your blood sugar control isn't too efficient and eating large quantities of honey which doesn't contain much potassium or b1 or other nutrients to help utilise the sugar is causing reactive hypoglycaemia and the headaches are cause by the stress reaction in response to this. Given that stress depletes magnesium it could be this that is causing the perceived magnesium deficiency rather than the processing of the sugar itself.

 

[squanch]

It's possible that magnesium can alleviate the headaches without it's paucity having been a cause of them. Perhaps your blood sugar control isn't too efficient and eating large quantities of honey which doesn't contain much potassium or b1 or other nutrients to help utilise the sugar is causing reactive hypoglycaemia and the headaches are cause by the stress reaction in response to this. Given that stress depletes magnesium it could be this that is causing the perceived magnesium deficiency rather than the processing of the sugar itself.

Thanks for your input.

Magnesium just alleviating the headaches through some mechanism like dilating the blood vessels was a thought that I also had in the beginning.

I actually bought one of those blood glucose meters before I started supplementing magnesium. My blood sugar was relatively stable, even after eating large amounts of honey and having a mayor headache.
I also got a blood test done and was eating shitloads of sugar the day before to see if it would effect my labs. Went into the doctors office with a massive headache the next morning, everything on my blood test was perfectly fine though.

Tried megadosing different b-vitamins without any success.

I really don't know what would cause these headaches other than a plain magnesium deficiency caused by eating to much sugar from low nutrient sources.

 

[Giraffe]

I agree with Hmac.

Regarding replenishing magnesium and magnesium alleviating pain ...

I dissolved epsom salt in 20 ml water, took as much salt as would dissolve. Then I applied it on my whole body and noted the effect (relaxation!) within minutes. When I repeated this experiment the effect was less pronounced or non-existent. I assume that I don't need to supplement that much magensium any longer. Sometimes I drop a little bit of that mixture in my ears to alleviate sinus-related headaches.

"The loss of magnesium contributes to vasoconstriction, inflammation, and bone loss." RP

 

[tara]

I think I sometimes get headaches when I eat too much sugar, esp. if I don't drink enough fluids. I do eat/drink quite a bit of sugar regularly these days, and every now and then it seems too much. Esp. if I'm sleep-deprived or run-down. I can also get headaches from hunger, and sometimes sugar staves them off, so it's not all one way.

 

[milk_lover]

I have been doing the transdermal magnesium oil for over a month and a half. I felt many benefits from it. Three months prior to that, I was drinking a lot of coca cola (in the UAE they use real cane sugar) and I felt that depleted my magnesium stores but I am not sure.

 

[kaybb]

My Doctor offers magnesium injections. I get one every other week and they help a lot with headaches and muscle pain.

 

[squanch]

My Doctor offers magnesium injections. I get one every other week and they help a lot with headaches and muscle pain.

Do you get the injections intravenously or into the muscle?
I could actually do the intramuscular injections at home myself, I've done that before with b12. Some people say it does burn a lot and can cause some tissue damage though, do you have any experience with that?
Also how much do you pay for the injections?

 

[kaybb]

About the injections...yes, they are in the back side/hip. Not too close to spine or it is super duper painful
My husband has given them to me when I couldn't get to doctor's office. They can be painful but not really horrible and they are so worth it. As to the .."tissue damage.." the nurse can feel scar tissue but she has said it's normal, just a part of it I guess. I hope you can try it! It's the number 1 thing on my supplement list, next to thyroid med.

 

[kaybb]

Also I forgot to mention...which it is really really important....The magnisuim must be pushed in very slowly. A little bit at a time. If you go too fast it is terrible painful. I feel the positive effects right away.

 

[squanch]

Thank you, i'm definitely going to try it

 

[jet9]

How do people like the hadza tribe manage to eat those large amounts of honey without the extra need for supplemental magnesium? Do they eat some secret magnesium berries? Maybe they just waste less magnesium due to lower stress hormones?

I noticed that your diet is starch (potatoes) heavy. I have similar issue with honey/fruits if starch is part of my diet. If however i am 48 hours starch free and than eat honey/fruits, i handle them much better and can eat a lot of them without fatigue/headache.

Hadza use tubers as fall back food
"Tubers fit the definition of fallback foods because they are the most continuously available but least preferred foods. Tubers are more often taken when berries are least available."
Tubers as fallback foods and their impact on Hadza hunter-gatherers. - PubMed - NCBI
So seems like starch is only big part of their diet when berries/honey are not available.