As some of you may know, I started to wean off my mood stabilizer, lamotrigine, at the beginning of march. previously i went through a cold turkey cymbalta withdrawal that led to a very difficult journey starting in may of 2014. i didn't feel good enough to start weaning from the lamotrigine until a few month ago. I thought i'd share my experience of adding a magnesium supplement to help with mild anxiety. below is a cross post from my thread "phase 2" in the Weaning Off Cymbalta" forum:
was planning to drop down to a straight 100 mg of lamotrigine today - but maybe tomorrow? or a week from today? <sigh> only because anxiety got real bad yesterday - the worst in years, actually. all physical. weak/achy muscles, major heart palpitations, shakiness, disoriented, unable to focus. i think it was exacerbated by the chelated magnesium glycinate i took. Solgar brand. I started thursday evening as per directed, 400 mg/day - 200 mg in the morning and 200 at night, did that for 24 hours and nearly went over the edge yesterday. unfortunately i was at a company "event", a special treat they took us bowling. anxiety does absolutely nothing for my game ;-). got better last night as i avoided my evening dose. got a great night's sleep, felt way better this morning and then within in hour it all came back. i didn't take any this morning. i did some research and saw several references to the 1% who don't tolerate it well and the anxiety increases. what i was interested in was the why. in some folks they already get enough, too much magnesium is known to create a "paradox effect" in anyone. also, even though the label doesn't say so, starting low and working up is recommended. makes TOTAL sense. with others, the type of magnesium is also important. some folks don't tolerate the chelated glycinate well. others don't do well with the magnesium citrate - such as in Calms. not having a good balance between magnesium, calcium and D-3 can also have an effect on some. more research to do for sure.
i also take 5000 iu's of D-3 as per Dr's orders - have been since the fall. i don't take any extra calcium but drink a lot of almond milk and eat a lot of yogurt and leafy greens.
I'm very interested in your feedback and learning about the experiences of others.
