Extreme reactions to minerals

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Has anybody experienced atypical reactions to small doses of minerals?
I'm primarily referring to dietary supplements that can be bought in supermarkets.


My family once decided it would be good idea to have me take magnesium supplements to improve my concentration and to make me calmer. When I took it, I felt drugged! I experienced stimuli as somehow... damped, it was as if I was taking in less. It did help with my concentration, because I felt 'alone and undisturbed' in my mind. The overall feeling was horrible though, I was a walking zombie.

I was also placed on simple iron dietary supplements. It made me very giddy, I was feeling as if I had taken an extra portion of energy that needed an outlet, I felt like I needed to move all the time until the effect of the Iron went away. It also increased my focus very much.

The only thing that didn't have a negative effect on me was calcium.


Anybody had similar experiences?
I didn't find out anything about how I could have reacted funny to the minerals though. Anybody know of similar cases?

Were you ever tested to see if you were actually lacking in these? Perhaps in your case it was too much? You do get a certain amount of vitamins & minerals in your regular diet, it's all on how your body processes things.

WOW, you NEED magnesium. Too much can give you diarrea, but otherwise doesn't create problems. Of course, other items with it can cause problems, and it DOES do things like help you get more amino acids, and some of THEM may be bad.

I wasn't tested for low levels, my family just thought it couldn't do harm since they always did try a lot on me. I managed to give one single blood sample without freaking out at the doctors, so I don't think I'll know what the levels of mineral in my blood look like soon.

It may have been too much, I haven't thought about this possibility yet. I'll try research about overdoses. I didn't get any diarrhoea though, no sickness, nothing. Maybe I would have been taken off these things sooner if I had showed one of these. I'll look into the amino acids too. I don't know about them causing bad reactions, but I never studied that particular aspect.
I do react funny to all kind of meds too, I suppose that is somehow related to my reactions to minerals in dietary supplements.

99.99% of the time, amino acids WON'T cause problems. Some people can't metabolize some properly though, and there are apparently 2 channels through which amino acids can be metabolized by the brain. One is the only one that some amino acids can take, and too much of a given amino can impede proper use of others. So, if your diet is odd, or you have an inability to metabolize some amino acid, magnesium COULD push you over the edge. To the best of my knowledge, diarrea is the ONLY symptom of an overdose. I used to overdose ALL THE TIME! Today, I try to keep it down to about 500mg a day. I used to take much more. I ALSO try to take about 1G of calcium. BTW an acute overdose of zinc can cause symptoms such as vomiting, stomach pain, diarrhea and fever. I have never had such an overdose, but males burn through zinc like females burn through iron, so YOU would be more likely to get an overdose than I would. STILL, that IS unlikely even for YOU. Zinc is a popular component of magnesium supplements.

The bottle of magnesium I am currently using ALSO contains glutamic acid HCL. That generally doesn't affect me at all, and glutamine IS one of the most important amino acids. STILL, that is a component used to metabolize things like GABA. GABA has historically not affected me, but now causes me to feel a little odd, and my brain ends up tingling. It isn't bad, and is actually kind of pleasant, but is disconcerting nonetheless. BTW the acid content is only 100mg here(NOT significant), and it doesn't affect ME at all.

Hopefully you can track it down.

I'm allergic to iodine in injected form, but that's not part of anyone's normal diet..

You need to consider that the actual content of "supplements" varies widely. And while whatever you took may have actually contained the mineral, that's not ALL it contained. There are other, supposedly "inert" ingredients in the pills, capsules, suspensions. You may have had a reaction to a preservative, or a binding agent.

Magnesium doesn't bother me until I got one made with magnesium aspartate. I think aspartate is the ingredient in aspartame that causes problems. I don't know why they have to put aspartame in everything. The cheaper brands add artificial food coloring, sodium lauryl sulfate (detergent used to clean garage floors), and a bunch of other crap. I think they even put aluminum and cyanide in some supplements.

Not exactly.

Aspartate is an amino acid and is found naturally in wild game and some vegetables.

That's what I was thinking. Depending on the manufacturer, there could be a variety of ingredients that trigger allergies or intolerances.

For magnesium, you dissolve 1-2 pounds of epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) in a bath and soak in it. There is a transport system in the skin that absorbs it. This Mg transport system is described as "high-affinity/low capacity" which means that soaking for 15 - 25 minutes this way will not overdose you.

i dont know if this count as a mineral or not, but when i was really young, i was sick, so the doctor gave me some medicine. however, after my parents gave me the medicine, black spots seemed to merge all around my body, especially around my mouth. then, they learn that i was allergic to the medicine, because it contains sulphure. i dont know whether im still allergic to it or not now but, im glad i was ok.

A fair number of people have problems with Sulfa drugs - this is NOT sulfur. Sulfur is an essential mineral. Chemicals with a sulfa ring are very different.

really? never knew that. haha, guess my parents have some explaining to do.