Epsom salts and anxiety

[Rachel]

Hi all,
I had a foot soak of Epsom salts last night, managed to drift off to sleep aroiund 10 then woke up midnight with intense anxiety. Heart pounded, pain in chest, numb arms, feelings of terror.
The same thing has happened previously(my symptoms really intensify) after using epsom salts so I'm not sure it can be a coincidence.
How can something which is supposed to reduce anxiety have the opposite effect on me? Has anyone else experienced this? Most people seem to get on really well with Epsom salts.
The same thing happened with fish oil - sheila mentioned it could be because i was using cod liver oil so I'm going to try a different fish oil but epsom salts shouldn't cause problems should they?!
Thanks for your feedback!
Rachel x

[Joy]

Hi Rachel,
I am sorry you have had such a difficult time with symptoms. I have heard Epson salts is calming but I haven't tried it. I have recently started using Magnesium Chloride in an oil form. It tastes awful but mixed with a little honey is pretty tasty. I have added it 2x a day and I believe at this point that I am feeling a calmness and sleepiness after taking it. I say believe at this point as I need to see it work for me longer to know it working and not just a fluke. My understanding is that Epson Salts is just Magnesium sulphate but not a chloride and the chloride form is apparently more easily tolerated. I have heard that a person can be sensitive to Magnesium in different forms however I haven't studied it. Somebody else probably knows more if your reaction is a coincidence or a feature of w/d. I also take Omega 3's but I take the sardine/anchovy fish oil one. I have noticed a big improvement with that and luckily didn't have any side effects however I started the Omega 3's at the beginning of my taper if that makes ay difference.
I will check back to see how you are doing. I hope you find out something that helps you.
Joy

[Luc]

Rachel, when you are in WD, your body is *extremely* sensitive to any kind of stimuli. What may have a perfectly calming effect in a healthy person, is very often not such when you recover from psychoactive drugs. The good news is that all those ultra-sensitivities will be diminishing with time.

[Sheila]

Anything you put on your skin is the same thing as eating it.

It may be, as Luc said, that you can't tolerate magnesium at all. But another possibility is that you simply can't tolerate this much of it without building up to it.

We don't know exactly how much mag you took in via your feet, but, let's just say you took in 200 mg. That means you were not taking mag regularly, and you suddenly took 200 mg. I had problems when I did that orally in early w/d. First, it relaxed me, and then I had a rebound of speedy heart beat so bad that I nearly called 911.

So, then, I waited awhile, and then I slowly built up eating mag, increasing by 50 mg at a time. That worked well.

So, I think you have to forgo epsom salt footbath for the time being, because we can't control how much mag you take in from it. You could use lavender in a footbath, and maybe try eating 50 mg mag.

[Luc]

Oh yes, magnesium is really worth trying out, starting from lower doses. When I wrote about being ultra-sensitive to stimuli, I meant mainly the Epson salts footbath way.

I just realized one more thing - it may also be that the water you used was quite hot, which could speed up the blood circulation and temporarily ramp up your WD symptoms.

[Rachel]

Joy thanks for your feedback, that;s really interesting about suphate and chloride. The oil form might be might be a good option for me. I think i'll take a trip to the local health food store as I'm actually feeling a bit better at the moment and see what I can find.
Luc thanks for this - I'm so glad to hear these sensitivities do diminish over time - yes the water was hot which could have sped up the blood circulation. Interesting.
Sheila your experience with mag in early WD sounds similar to what happened to me. You're right - i perhaps could try again but at a very low dose.
Great advice everyone - thankyou so much for your help :)

[Joy]

Hey Rachel, wondering if you tried the Magnesium, and if you did how you found it to work?
Joy

[bruno2006]

is it possible also that there was some type of detox going on?

I benefited greatly from Epsom salt baths when my withdrawal was severe, however I did have anxiety one time after supplementing with anxiety and my friend had anxiety after supplementing as well. So, who knows. I guess we react differently depending on various factors that may or may not be unknown.

[Rachel]

Joy, i couldn't find any in the local health shop but i've ordered some from the internet. It's yet to arrive so I'll let you know how I get on :)
Thanks Bruno - most people seem to get on really well with Epsom salt baths, I think Sheila's advice is good to take a tiny bit at a time and see what happens. I'd like to try again.

[Sheila]

Bruno – I think spontaneous, unplanned detox is an insufficiently understood part of complicated w/d, and can occur for different people as a result of many different types of intervention. It’s something to consider. Mild detox may not be a bad idea at all, but you may have to wait until a point in your healing when you can handle the “healing crisis” aspect of it.

One of our members Samsara thinks, and I agree, that for some of us, our livers aren't clearing things in the usual way, and this is part of what happens for some people as time goes on. This isn't true for everyone.