Hyperemesis, Vitamin B, and Magnesium

I found this article recently and thought it was quite interesting:

THE MAGIC OF B COMPLEX-B12 AND MAGNESIUM INJECTIONS

Interesting because (1) it's simple therapy, widely available, and (2) it's written by a doctor who actually used the treatment with hyperemetic patients (i.e. it's not just vague theorizing).

Thoughts, anyone?

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Over here, we are going through yet another round of illness - it's been insane around here this past month! I am victim #1, and DH looks like he's going to be victim #2. Fun stuff!

Have a great Ash Wednesday, everyone! I am giving up sugary stuff for Lent, so we'll see how that goes! I've already cheated with gummy vitamins (I could live off of those things!) and bread with honey, but I did give myself permission to eat honey and dried fruit and not to be too Nazi-ish about the whole thing. But the entire 40 days without dessert? We'll see.

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Later note:

I am reprinting this article below, which I had THANKFULLY copied into a document, as the link is now dead:



THE MAGIC OF B COMPLEX-B12 AND MAGNESIUM INJECTIONS 
Dr. George M. Wolverton

 Early in my medical career, my family medical practice included obstetrics. During that time, I delivered approximately 1800 babies. Oftentimes pregnant women in the first trimester would get nausea of pregnancy, or morning sickness. Sometimes an even more unpleasant—and potentially dangerous—condition would develop.


Hyperemesis Gravidarum: “Extended Morning Sickness”

In those days it was not uncommon for a condition called Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) to develop. This is a situation where nausea with the first trimester of pregnancy continues with vomiting during the rest of the pregnancy.

The cause of HG is still not fully understood, but the condition is potentially dangerous for both mother and fetus. The pregnant woman often loses weight and becomes dehydrated, leading to nutritional deficiencies (including depletion of B vitamins) and other problems. Sometimes these women need to be hospitalized for up to a week or more to control the condition.

Treatment with Vitamin Injections 

Though Hyperemesis Gravidarum was fairly common at Clark County Hospital in those days, my practice rarely saw full-fledged cases of the condition. At the first sign of nausea, I instructed patients to receive weekly injections of betaline or Vitamin B Complex with B-12. I gave them extra Vitamin B-6 in the form of supplements. In addition, I would give them shots of magnesium, which is the cation of youth and which makes intracellular function so much better that the nausea of pregnancy would usually leave.

I would also give these women zinc with the first nausea of pregnancy. Well over 95% of patients fail our zinc taste test to determine zinc deficiency, meaning that most people are deficient in zinc. Utilizing the injections and supplements usually helped women get over their HG relatively quickly, giving them an opportunity to enjoy their pregnancy without “tossing their cookies.”

Vitamin Injections for Fatigue and Other Ailments 

I stopped delivering babies in 1983 and actually missed not doing so. As my practice began to age, people would come in with brain fog, chronic fatigue, and generally not feeling very well. I realized that the magnesium and B Complex injections, which had been so helpful for pregnant women, would also benefit many of my other patients.

I would show my patients how to give themselves injections of magnesium on a daily basis and also betaline and B-12 shots every other day, providing that they had enough internal fortitude to do so. Are the shots painful? Yes, but we teach patients how to use a local anesthetic called procaine in the injections so that the pain is not great. However, doing the injections does require you to be “captain of your own ship and master of your own fate,” as the old poem says.

Patients on vitamin injections would often come back to the office several weeks later, saying that they felt like they had dramatically improved. Much of the time, patients on this regimen will feel so much better that they are almost radiant when they come in, merely from “being their own doctor” and giving themselves their own shots.

Of course, I insisted that they follow our wellness program, which avoids chemicals in the food chain by eating organically. I also encouraged these patients to follow our Chelation Therapy program.


Specific Benefits of B Vitamins and Magnesium 

Vitamin B actually consists of several separate but interrelated water-soluble vitamins that are important for cell metabolism. The B Complex mixture we use in injections is a combination of several of these: thiamine (B-1), riboflavin (B-2), niacin (B-3), dexapanthenol or pantothenic acid (B-5), and pyrodoxine (B-6). We also include Vitamin B-12, or cyanocobalamin.

B vitamins help improve energy and are often helpful for people with problems like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, anemia, depression, memory trouble, and neurological problems like polyneuritis, among others.

 God (the Great Physician) knows all three trillion of the estimated biochemical exchanges going on in each cell of the body. Science only knows how to test approximately 1000 of these biochemical exchanges. B vitamins are believed to be effective in about one out of each five of the known biochemical exchanges in the body. I tell patients who come in with a battery of test results that are all normal—even though the patients feel horrible, with much fatigue and brain fog—that their biochemical deficiencies are quite possibly in the areas that can be corrected by these shots. We may not fully understand why they work, but the Great Physician does. We just know that they do work a large percentage of the time.

 Magnesium is also vital to cellular functions. I call magnesium the “cation of youth” because it helps keep the body’s cells young and working properly. Deficiency in this important mineral is relatively common. Magnesium helps with feelings of overall well-being. It tends to have a calming effect and thus can be useful to ADHD patients and also people with high blood pressure. In fact, when a patient comes in to our office with dangerously high blood pressure, oftentimes one of the first things I will do is to give them a magnesium injection, which helps the blood pressure come down relatively quickly. Magnesium injections often help people with headaches and migraines, in addition to many neurological and other issues.

 Sublingual B Complex and Magnesium 

For patients who for various reasons are not able to take these vitamin injections, sublingual, or under the tongue, drops of B Complex/B-12 and magnesium are available. I believe these drops are not as helpful as the injections, which deliver the nutrients directly to the tissues. However, the drops are better than nothing.

 The problem with taking the sublingual solution as opposed to the shots is that the shots deliver the nutrients into your body in 17 seconds, bypassing the “war zone” of the stomach and liver. It is the speed with which the nutrients get into the body that dislodges the “cation of aging” (calcium) from its intracellular place where it has replaced magnesium, which is supposed to be inside the cell. Calcium is supposed to be outside the cell. Chelation Therapy also helps magnesium and calcium stay in their proper places in the body.

 It is my conviction that the real magic of magnesium and Vitamin B Complex/B-12 injections is that they help the body to better function the way it was intended to function. These injections helped me successfully treat pregnant women with Hyperemesis Gravidarum without having to put them in the hospital, even with 1800 delivery patients. The injections have also helped countless other patients with a wide range of symptoms and diagnoses. After all, we all need more intracellular energy so that we can live longer, better, and accomplish our impossible dream, as they sing in The Man of La Mancha: 


To dream the impossible dream 
To fight the unbeatable foe 
To bear with unbearable sorrow 
To run where the brave dare not go […] 
To fight for the right 
Without question or pause 
To be willing to march into Hell 
For a heavenly cause