Lara Briden's Forum

Hi Lovely Lara
I read your wonderful book – Hormone Repair Manual and thought I better up my magnesium intake. I was already taking a multi vitamin which had 50mg Magnesium Citrate in it. So I bought AcuIntegra Magnesium Glycinate, 100mg per capsule (20% elemental magnesium). To get 300mg of elemental magnesium I needed to take a few. I began with one a day and gradually over two weeks went up to 6 a day (alongside my multi vit). I found that my digestion was upset - I was burping a lot, abdomen swelled up etc. I figured this was the only new thing that I had introduced, so I Googled it, as you do. I read that magnesium can stop HCL going into the stomach (It also said that you need magnesium to make HCL and people with low magnesium have low HCL, so it is a vicious circle). I was wondering your thoughts on this? As I desperately want to take the magnesium. I bought some HCL, as I thought maybe if I take that then I will be able to tolerate the magnesium. I have ME/CFS and Lyme disease so my body does not always react normally. A few weeks back I tried to add extra Zinc (after reading your book). I normally take 13mg Zinc Citrate daily in my multi vit then I added one extra Zinc Picolinate (Pure Encapsulations 30mg) for one day and my body did not like it and my stomach blew up. I took it at the end of my main meal too. It is so frustrating as I want to follow your protocol and I am so excited and hopeful that I can change my health situation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks ever so much!

It's pretty common to experience digestive upset from magnesium, and yes, it could help to take it with food and HCL. It can also help to try to first address any underlying digestive issues like SIBO. Which will then make it possible to tolerate magnesium. Happy to have others chime in here.

Thank you so much!

I was worried I had misunderstood and taken too much magnesium (I got up to taking 600mg of Magnesium Glycinate but that was still only 120mg elemental magnesium, I had not even got up to 300mg of elemental).

Digestion is usually fine but magnesium made me continuously burp all day and abdomen swell right up. I stopped taking magnesium and have been taking HCL with evening meal. Also cut out all grain (I was already wheat and dairy free). Digestion is still upset, trying to calm it down. I will look into sibo but in the meantime any ideas from anyone, very welcome. I already take digestive enzymes and have began taking a probiotic again. It is so annoying as I really want to get back on the magnesium as it helped my cycle. Bodies are so wonderful but so complicated aren't they!

I appreciate seeing a Mg thread here, thank you.

I have a Mg supplement that contains Mg only from three different Mg sources (aa chelate, glycerate and orotate). 150mg of elemental Mg per capsule. I am a Naturopath, so I am lucky to be able to obtain this dose.

I am wondering if a divided dose of Mg is best? 150mg cap in the day, then the second 150mg cap before bed to achieve a 300mg dose per day? Or would 2 caps (300mg in one dose) before bed be better? I am asking mainly around a treatment indication of anxiety due to sleep maintenance insomnia.

I did not realise the link between Mg and HCl, thank you Zed-Red that is useful to know.

Many thanks.

Is it possible there is an excipient in your Mg supplement that does not agree for you? It could be that to achieve the 300mg dose (and take several capsules) you may be getting a lot of an excipient that does not agree with you?

Just a thought