Athletes and weekend warriors are not the only ones that get muscle spasms and cramps. Ask anyone in these professions: Roofers, plumbers, contractors, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, etc.
Pulling your back out, just plain overuse, or that dreaded thing – “getting older” happens to everyone.
Nine years and counting after my back surgery, I still find that the main thing that helps my back pain is our magnesium cream. Early on in my recovery, I realized that my discomfort after surgery had much more to do with back spasms than with back pain. Most of my reading about magnesium as a muscle relaxant leads me to articles that guardedly claim that magnesium might help with muscle spasms.
While calcium is known to be one of the main ions in muscle contraction, magnesium is known to facilitate muscle relaxation. When muscle contraction occurs, calcium binds to specific areas on the muscles which enhances the muscle contractility. Magnesium competes with calcium for those same binding spots.
In doing so, it allows the muscle to relax after contraction occurs. If muscles aren’t able to contract, they tighten too much, which is what muscle spasm is, in essence. If your body’s magnesium stores are too low, you may experience things like Charlie horse cramping in your legs, or restless leg syndrome.
The worst night at home after my back surgery was the night I woke up with back pain AND intolerable pain in my calves from a Charlie horse. It was at that point that I needed to find a solution. Being stuck on prescription painkillers and prescription muscle relaxants long term was not an option for me. So I looked for alternatives.
My journey into understanding oral and topical formulations and helping to develop an affordable product began. I find magnesium effective. I cannot make a claim that it absolutely works for everyone. But understanding the molecular action of magnesium in the process of muscle contraction and relaxation and understanding the importance of magnesium in cellular respiration leads me to believe it is an important essential mineral for our bodies as is calcium, or as important as electrolytes. Just not well understood.
There are plenty of oral formulations available, not all are equally absorbed and some cause GI side effects. But since our cream is topically absorbed, it bypasses the first pass effect in the GI tract and can act locally if applied directly to areas of discomfort, such as the neck, back, or systemically, if applied to the bottom of the feet.
