How Soon Do You Feel the Benefits of Magnesium?

According to National Institutes of Health online medical encyclopedia Medline Plus, magnesium is an essential nutrient that helps with protein production, contraction and relaxation of your muscles and enzyme functions. Magnesium is found in foods such as halibut, green leafy vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, soy products and whole grains. Most multivitamin supplements also contain magnesium. If you’re deficient in magnesium, you could suffer serious side effects, so talk to your doctor about ways to increase the magnesium in your body.

Symptoms

If you don’t consume enough magnesium on a daily basis, you could suffer early, moderate or severe symptoms of magnesium deficiency. According to Medline Plus, early symptoms of magnesium deficiency include muscle twitching, poor cognition, irritability, fatigue and confusion, while moderate and sever symptoms include rapid heartbeat, numbness, tingling, hallucinations and delirium.

Basics

The length of time it takes to reduce symptoms of magnesium deficiency after increasing your magnesium consumption depends on the method used to increase magnesium levels in your body. The National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements reports that if magnesium levels in your body are low, increasing dietary intake of magnesium from foods may not be enough to help restore your magnesium levels to normal amounts and intravenous magnesium or prescription magnesium tablets may be indicated by your doctor.

Considerations

If your doctor recommends intravenous magnesium to help increase your blood magnesium levels, you’ll likely feel benefits of magnesium injections soon after they occur, although the exact time it will take may vary. Compared with consuming magnesium from foods, intravenous magnesium injections or prescription magnesium tablets are a quicker and more effective way to help increase your blood magnesium levels and magnesium stores in your body.