Joyce (Joelton, Tn) on 04/07/2009
Hello,
Sorry your 13 year old has seizure problems. If she is a normal sized l3 year old dosages would be the same as for adults, and since the recommended laxative dosage for epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) is 1 to 2 tsps I would try giving her 1/2 tsp. morning & bedtime. Another form of magnesium is magnesium oxide which you can buy tablets of it combined with vitamin B6 (Beelith tablets) and give her l morning & bedtime.
Since magnesium probably works to combat seizures by competing with monosodium glutamate (MSG) for sites in the brain, I suggest you google "excitotoxins" to find a list of names they hide MSG under in the ingredients lists of foods. Another excitotoxin you need to eliminate is aspartame (NutraSweet or Equal). When reading those ingredients lists, be especially alert for any "hydrolyzed plant (corn, soy, pea, etc) protein as it contains both MSG and aspartame.
Catherine (Wellington, New Zealand) on 10/25/2008
My journey into nutrition started in the 70's with Adelle Davis' books. She recommended magnesium (epsom salts) for Epilepsy. I have told this to various people over the years and offered them the books to read, amazingly they didn't want to do the research, preferring the allopathic methods of treatment. Ms Davis was also a strong proponent of folic acid to prevent spina biffida! This has only recently been taken seriously..but her evidence could have saved much untold misery for unfortunate families during these intervening years.
In one of her books Ms Davis referred to another nutritionist from the 40's who opined that unless magnesium levels in the diet were improved, within a generation we would't be able to tell from the backview the difference between boys and girls!!! Well girls used to have waists (18" to 22") and boys always had physiques, maybe lack of magnesium affects the hormones somehow.
Joyce (Joelton, Tn) on 11/16/2007
Look in any pharmacology book and it will tell you that magnesium (Epsom salts is one form of it) is the second most plentiful cation of the intracellular fluids and is essential for the activity of many enzymes and plays an important role in neurochemical transmission and muscular excitability. Deficits cause a variety of structural and functional disturbances. Epsom salts is given IV to prevent seizures in pre- eclamptic/eclamptic women to prevent seizures. Mg is a co- factor of all enzymes involved in phosphate transer reaction. Mg deficiency causes increased irritability, disorientation, convulsions (seiures) and psychotic behavior.It also had a direct effect on the neuromuscular and cardiovascular system. Hypomagnesium (deficit) occurs with vomiting, diarrhea, diuretic meds, and alcoholism (also our fast, junk food diets. You have lucked up and discovered what I often tell people" IF YOU CAN CURE THE PROBLEM WITH A VITAMIN OR MINERALS, THE PROBLEM IS NOT DISEASE, IT IS A DIETARY DEFICIENCY. Neurosurgeon Russell L. Blaylock, tells that excitotoxins also cause seiures, so I urge all readers to type in excitotoxins and hit go: copy the names they hide the excitotoxins under, then head for your kitchens and read ingredients on all foods there (including your raw, must be cooked chicken and beef), your canned foods, salad dressing, and sauces. You will learn that your food chain is as monosodiumglutamate laden as any stir-fried Asian meal. You just might find what is causing your seizures in the food you eat. If yours are caused by excitotoxins, we might ask Ted if magnesium is an antidote for MSG. If it is, then perhaps we should start giving alzheimers, Parkinson diseae patients Epsom salts 7 watch for improvement. The lovely part of taking epsom salts instead of anti-convulsants and anti-hypertensives is that it will quickly tell you when to quit by the diarrhea which is an early side effect. The medical field is not going to tell you to take epsom salts for seizures, even though it gives it for the same, because they can't patent, nor do you need to keep coming back to them for presciptions. But in defense of the individual doctors (a few of which would like to tell you about it), if they did and the AMA (the strongest union in the country) would jump on their case in a hurry and find some way to re-voke their license to practice medicine. Let's all say "THANK YOU, GOD" for the Ted's in this world.
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