Magnesium and vitamin D

[Pegs11]

Hi, I’m 40, went through surgical menopause aged 32. I also had a hemicolectomy and had my gall bladder and spleen removed, so I have some digestive issues. I started taking magnesium citrate and vitamin d on the advice of a private nutritionist I saw, and have been taking that for several years now.

A week ago I asked my GP if I could get these supplements on the NHS (because I’m skint)... and she said no, and started reeling off the risks of having too much magnesium and ordered a blood test. She kind of freaked me out, suggesting I could be damaging my heart with the magnesium.

I’m still awaiting the blood test but in the meantime I have stopped both supplements.

In the last couple of days I have started feeling terrible - very fatigued, stiff and achy, almost virus-like symptoms. Perhaps it is a simple virus... But I’m wondering if stopping these supplements could have caused this to happen, and to happen so quickly...? Can the body start exhibiting magnesium/vit D deficiency within only a week?

I have rarely received good advice from my GP, so I’m considering ignoring her and just getting back on the supplements.

@Pegs11 Thank you - I will give that a go.

There is some research on using Vit K with Vit D but it's all been done in a clinical setting where the dose of Vit D was far higher than anyone would ever take normally. And of course you'd need to get the right ratio of Vit K to D, which is not easy unless you are a medical researcher in this!

Vit K is found in foods, so I'd just make sure you eat some of them :)

Thanks @JinglingHellsBells that’s good to know.

The nutritionist I went to personally was indeed better but if you can pick up these qualifications ten a penny, if I was the OP in light of your info, id be wanting further info about his or her qualifications and experience before trusting one.

I know mine is well qualified as she’s done it for 20 years along with counselling and acupuncture and is brilliant at resolving various issues that arise with me so I trust her. She’s been right about so many things with my health!

I only know @Elieza because as a health writer I need to interview experts for information and quotes- that means I need to check out their training etc and not go to anyone who is not properly qualified. Degrees in nutrition are very recent, and some nutritionists are very well qualified, but many aren't and set themselves up with a fancy website and when you look at their training it's usually an online course for a few months from some training company that has no credibility at all.

My nutritionist’s bio says she graduated from the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and is currently studying for her Masters degree in Advanced Nutrition Research and Practice, with a focus on alterations in the gut microbiome and IBS, and nutritional support for PCOS. She is a BANT member and CNHC registered.

I don’t know what any of that means really. I just know that when I cut out the magnesium I felt terrible with fatigue and body aches and was very constipated! And the fact the magnesium has been recommended by two other professionals too, makes me lean more towards taking them than not. My GP hasn’t ever done anything for me that has actually improved my wellbeing, so I don’t trust her judgment.

I looked on Google Scholar for scientific papers on the use of magnesium, and it does have clinically significant results for people with a range of health issues including the ones I suffer from. The evidence is strong, certainly compared to a lot of other supplements that women take for menopause symptoms (like black cohosh for instance, which I also looked up as I remember someone once recommended it to me).

Here’s something I found on vitamin K2:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566462/

It does seem to play a role in preventing arterial clogging that can be caused by calcium supplements. I haven’t done enough reading on the matter to find out what it’s relationship to vitamin D is though.

My nutritionist’s bio says she graduated from the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and is currently studying for her Masters degree in Advanced Nutrition Research and Practice, with a focus on alterations in the gut microbiome and IBS, and nutritional support for PCOS. She is a BANT member and CNHC registered.

That's not a proper university. They have linked with the university of Portsmouth (if you read the blurb on their Home page.) Their BSc degree costs £4500 which is a fraction of a degree at a university (cost usually £9K x 3 years.)

Compare that with the one by Uni London- King's College - which trains graduates to work in the NHS. www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/nutrition

The CNHC is a voluntary organisation where anyone offering complementary therapies can register. It's not the same as the BDA www.bda.uk.com/membership/membership-categories.html

Not saying there is anything wrong with the advice she offers, but it's not comparable with a university degree at a good university.

@JinglingHellsBells I see what you’re saying but the problem is, the NHS has not helped me. It has taken me up to a year to get referral appointments. On at least two occasions I have booked an appointment, waited for months and months, and then had a letter through the post cancelling the appointment with no explanation given. Furthermore my GP has made referrals to the wrong department, again wasting time and leaving me cast adrift. And then more often than not when I do get to see someone, they fail to carry out proper tests, refuse to give me treatment, or they give me poor quality meds that don’t work.

I need to see ENT about my sinuses, I have a polyp the size of a pea up my nose, but according to my GP they simply won’t take referrals for that anymore. So what’s a girl to do? Especially when I can’t afford to spend £250 for a consultation with a “proper” expert 😟

If you have a nasal polyp that needs looking at, your GP needs to arrange for you to see someone. I don't believe that they are not seeing people- push your GP and ask WHY they are not seeing people.

Change your GP?

I sympathise OP. Projecting my own experience here - I had excellent care as an emergency surgical patient, but have had literally no support whatsoever with the long-term functional and nutritional consequences of losing the relevant digestive anatomy, and of the remaining anatomy being damaged by the surgical process itself and subsequent adhesions. Once I was discharged from the surgeons, that was that. It is not easy.

@JinglingHellsBells I spoke to my GP and she is going to try and get me seen by ENT but she doesn’t hold out much hope. I have an addiction to Sudafed nasal spray thanks to not getting the right help with my sinusitis/polyp. She says ENT won’t treat me until I stop taking the Sudafed. I pointed out that the whole point of me wanting to see them is because I first need their help with the Sudafed addiction. Honestly, it’s like being told you can’t go to AA meetings until you’ve stopped drinking. It’s stupid.

@LarkDescending Thank you for reminding me I’m not alone in my predicament. I had excellent surgical care too, but absolutely zero follow-up with dietary and hormonal/gynaecological advice. I even had my routine colonoscopy three years late... because no one bothered to tell me I needed one every five years. I did eventually get one done and thankfully it was fine.

I’m really at the end of my rope with it all, I’m finding it hard not to get really angry. Why someone who’s had half their organs removed can’t get even the most basic support is beyond me. I’m lucky in a way that I have a little bit of savings and could just about afford to see this nurse practitioner about my HRT. What about people who have no income AND no savings... I dread to think. The levels of neglect are astronomical. Although that being said, I think it’s a postcode lottery. I have a friend in Surrey who is a millionaire and she’s has a ton of help from the NHS with her IVF and other problems.

I’m also getting zero mental health support on the NHS despite being bipolar and having severe PTSD and anxiety. I did actually get referred to an organisation called VitaHealth, but when they did their initial assessment they said my case was too severe for them to deal with and they couldn’t treat me. I went back to my GP to ask what options were left. She said the only thing I could do was to try VitaHealth again. They have already told me no, am I to hope they will change their minds? Honestly I’m fuming.

Have you come across this podcast? Sone useful evidence based discussion on menopause and diet/supplements/lifestyle thedoctorskitchen.com/womens-health/eating-and-the-menopause. It sounds like vitamin d deficiency can have quite an impact but not sure if you'd become deficient in a week of stopping.

I know what you mean about it being hard to get diet advice from health service. Like you OP and LarkDescending I also had a hemicolectomy and got absolutely no advice on diet afterwards (apart from low fibre after surgery). Often wondered if the shorter digestive tract makes any difference to absorption of nutrients.

@Taytotots thanks for the link to the podcast, I will give that a listen tomorrow :)

I’m sorry to hear you were cast adrift too after your surgery. This seems to be becoming a theme... these are some serious life-changing surgeries we’ve been through, how can there be zero follow-up care? I lost my spleen, gall bladder, half my large bowel, my ovaries and tubes, part of my liver, part of my diaphragm, my entire peritoneum and omentum, they even cut my bellybutton out ... they took all that stuff out of me and then it was just like, “OK bye!” Sent me on my way. No follow up support (apart from CT scans every two years to make sure the disease hasn’t come back). I have PTSD because of all that and the subsequent fertility stuff / miscarriage. No fucking help with that. Very little financial assistance from the government since developing chronic fatigue and anxiety and losing my job over it. Wasting what little money I did have on various weird alternative therapies because I was desperate and because I didn’t know what I was doing because I had no NHS guidance.

It is driving me increasingly insane that there is just no one in the NHS helping me (although I’m kind of reassured in a weird way that it’s not just me it’s happening to!) Honestly I feel like I’m being driven mad by it all, by the brick walls I’m constantly banging my head against and the circles I’m constantly running around in... It’s really getting the better of me.

I’ve always been determined and I’ve gone and tried to find help myself... which would be great except that with no NHS guidance, I’ve messed up soooo many times... because I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’m always guessing and I’ve been easily beguiled by various alternative treatments holding the promise of a cure....

I’m super grateful to @JinglingHellsBells for giving me pretty much the only bit of advice that has ever really helped me - to get myself on decent HRT (for which I had to go private). I can’t imagine where I’d be now if she hadn’t given me that guidance. That level of chronic fatigue was totally destroying my life. It seriously limited my life for almost two years and really, the advice she gave me should have been given much sooner and by an NHS consultant. Then those two years of my life wouldn’t have been so fucking horrible and I wouldn’t be such a big physical and emotional mess now.

Massive rant there... sorry... I hate being a moaner... guess I just needed to get it out of my system, my frustration has been gradually building up and now it’s overwhelming me a bit!

I can absolutely sympathise, I'm now at a stage where I am unlikely to ever visit a GP again unless I'm at death's door.

I have Vit D3 and Vit K2 arriving tomorrow and have made up a magnesium spray bottle.

I hope things get better for you soon.

@HRTRefusal Thank you for the empathy, and I’m sorry you’ve suffered too 😔

yeah... I’m starting to wonder why I bother seeing my GP at all to be honest...

But y’know, we go doing things like buying supplements to try and help ourselves, because our GPs aren’t helping us... and then our GPs tell us off for taking supplements... And it’s like well, maybe I wouldn’t have bought the supplements if you’d actually helped me get the right advice/support in the first place. Don’t leave to fend for myself, then tell me off for doing it all wrong... whilst offering me no alternative. Gah!

Having pestered and hounded my GP today I have finally been referred to an NHS menopause clinic... and I was relieved ... until I discovered the waiting time for appointments is a minimum of 32 weeks! Soooo... in the meantime I suppose I’ll keep on with what I’m doing and just hope I’m not causing myself harm.

The world is INSANE!!! And I feel like I am increasingly going insane too 😏

I literally have drawers stuffed full of weird supplements I’ve wasted money on over the last two years... that’s what happens when you leave a desperate woman to fend for herself with only the internet for guidance, Lol

(I do think the magnesium actually helps, though.)

@pegs11 I think you are entitled to a bit of a rant! That's some serious surgery. I think I got off lightly with just the colon! I'm actually not nhs but in the canadian system. The one good thing here is my gp will do long appointments so there is time to discuss stuff a bit. Although many people can't get a gp at all where I am so I am lucky.

P.s. glad you got referred.