Chronic Fatigue, and Magnesium Deficiency

Women’s Health is greatly affected by a magnesium deficiency and is common in chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia sufferers.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) was formally recognized and defined as an illness by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 1988. Before that time and even since, any doctors considered the condition psychological. CFS goes by various names: Epstein-Barr, yuppie flu, and, in Britain, myalgic encephalomyelitis (which identifies the muscles and brain as sites of inflammation).

The symptoms of CFS are chronic headaches, swollen glands, periodic fevers and chills, muscle and joint aches and pains, muscle weakness, sore throat, and numbness and tingling of the extremities. The general feeling is one of incredible fatigue and inability to do even the simplest of tasks without becoming exhausted, inability to cope with any stress, and insomnia.
Fibromyalgia

It wasn’t until 1990 that the American College of Rheumatology established diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia, thereby giving it official status as an illness. Fibro means connective tissue and refers to the thin tissue that wraps around muscles, and myalgia means muscle pain.  Also called fibrositis, fibromyalgia is a close cousin of CFS and shares many of its symptoms: incapacitating fatigue, muscle and joint pain, neuralgia, sleep disorders, anxiety, depression, cognitive confusion, and digestive problems. (CFS sufferers, in addition, have mild fever, swollen glands, and a sore throat, which distinguishes them from fibromyalgia patients.)

I believe fibromyalgia is the latest label for an accumulation of toxins and infections from both environment and lifestyle. Twenty-six doctors who present their cases in a book on chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia agree. (Goldberg B, Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia & Environmental Illness: 26 Doctors Show You How They Reverse These Conditions with Clinically Proven Alternative Therapies, Future Medicine Publishing, Tiburon, CA. 1998.)

Our exposure to toxins, chemicals, and prescription drugs begins at birth. Substances we think are safe can break down our immune systems and deplete our nutrient reserves, and I and many other doctors believe they lead to CFS, fibromyalgia, and environmental illness in a growing list of sufferers. (Ibid)

Toxins, chemicals and prescription drugs as well as the processed foods that we eat and the sodas that we drink deplete our bodies of magnesium.

Research has found that:

* Magnesium deficiency is common in chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia sufferers.

* Magnesium forms an important part of treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

* Magnesium reduces the fatigue, muscle pain and chemical sensitivity of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

Dr. Carolyn Dean, Medical Director Vida Costa Spa, author of The Magnesium Miracle.