Intravenous magnesium relieves acute migraine attacks in patients with magnesium deficiency, which is present in half of migraine sufferers, according to the study we published in 1995 in the journal Clinical Science. Infusions not only treat an acute attack, but also prevent migraines. Oral magnesium supplementation is not as effective and helps less than 50% of patients because some patients do not absorb magnesium. Most people get enough magnesium from food, but some migraine sufferers have a genetic defect which prevents them from absorbing magnesium or a genetic defect that leads to an excessive loss of magnesium through kidneys.
Our experience with thousands of patients suggests that the majority of migraine sufferers who are magnesium deficient do improve with oral supplementation, but about 10% do not. These patients need regular infusions of magnesium and these infusions are often life-changing. Magnesium not only treats and prevents migraines, but also relieves muscle cramps, PMS, palpitations, “brain fog”, and other symptoms.
There are many mentions of magnesium on my blog and on the nyheadache.com website, so what prompted another post on this topic is a couple of patients with an unusal experience. I would occasionally see such patients but in the past few weeks, I saw several. These patients tell me that when we give them an infusion of magnesium by “slow push” over 5 minutes they get excellent relief, but when they end up in an emergency room or another doctor’s office where they receive the same amount of magnesium through an intravenous drip over a half an hour or longer, there is no relief.
A likely explanation is that a push results in a high blood level, which overcomes the blood-brain barrier and delivers magnesium into the brain, while during a drip, magnesium level does not increase to a high enough level to reach the brain. Studies have shown that migraineurs not only have a systemic magnesium deficiency, but specifically in their brains. A similar phenomenon has been described with sumatriptan (Imitrex). Researchers discovered that migraine sufferers who did not respond to sumatriptan had a much slower increase in the drug level compared to responders, even though the total amount of the drug absorbed into the blood was the same.
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