Epsom Salts, Pain Reduction and Sleep in Fibromyalgia

[fright] [/fright]Epsom salts are cheap and easy to use. Simply spread them in your bathwater before bed some say and you'll be repaid with less achy muscles and better sleep. Could it be so easy?

Dr. Teitelbaum has long advocated the use of Epsom salts in the bath to increase magnesium levels, calm the body down and help with sleep and pain.

Encouragingly a study is underway to assess how effective Epsom salts are in FM.

Check out this article by Emaxx health on how FM salts can be an inexpensive help for FM (and ME/CFS). Every little bit counts.

Patients and doctors have previously reported that they noticed a reduction in symptoms after using Epsom salt because of the high magnesium content. Research indicates that many fibromyalgia patients also suffer from magnesium deficiencies. A study from researchers in Minnesota focused on the use of transdermal magnesium to help patients improve the quality of their life. The study participants received a spray bottle with magnesium and applied it to their limbs two times a day. The results reveal that patients felt better and noticed fewer symptoms.

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On the other Paul Ingraham presents a skeptical point of view.

When I went to my super-duper advanced massage therapy college, my instructors suggested Epsom salt baths as a good thing to prescribe to our clients. No scientific basis for this idea was ever presented: it was just one of those things that everybody “knew,” a folk remedy justified by the generations of wise old wives and bathers. The physiology of it certainly wasn’t explained.

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In his long blog he examines every claim made for Epsom salts and just cannot figure out a way that Epsom salts might work. Check his blog out here.

There's certainly no harm in trying though.