Have you ever taken a magnesium powder or tablet, excited for it to help your sleep, stress or pain levels and/or muscle cramps, and only found it made you feel nauseous or gave you stomach problems?

Almost every patient finds supplementing magnesium helpful for most conditions but our digestive microbiome health and also the type of magnesium has a lot to do with the way your body will respond.

Chances are you are on the right track to take it, but there is something you need to tweak or work on first before getting success with your symptom reduction.

Is Your Magnesium the Best Form?

When taking a natural product or supplement, we ideally want it as close to nature as possible. If you are eating an orange for the vitamin C, the reason why it is absorbed perfectly is because it comes as a perfect package of not just vitamin C.
Magnesium, as a supplement, can come in many different forms and can also be found as only one ingredient or in blends which contain several co-factors.
Ideally we want it to be as pure and natural as possible in order to maximise absorption and minimise irritation to our digestion.
Supplement companies vary tremendously and unfortunately some have a need to maximise profits. When you check the maker, you might find it is a pharmaceutical company manufacturing the "health" product and they have used the cheapest form as possible which maximises their profits.
Some cheap poor forms such as -

• Magnesium oxide
• Magnesium chloride
• or magnesium sulfate

are relatively cheap and are not the most optimal for absorption. They can depend upon digestive acid and can sometimes be used in constipation formulations. 
Worse still would be ingredients such as Magnesium stearate which is used as a filler or tablet lubricate in manufacturing. It is added not for the benefit of giving you magnesium but more for the manufacturing purpose. Although it is listed as a "magnesium", it is not going to give you the positive effect of magnesium.

Best Forms Of Magnesium Supplement

Generally a good form of magnesium means it is optimally absorbed and used by your body and this needs to happen in the digestive tract.
When taking a natural medicine supplements, we want to try to take a truly natural/bio-identical substance that the body recognises as natural like food.

Amino acid chelate forms, such as magnesium glycinate or malate form or citrate are generally considered the best forms. In addition, products with limited excipients and combination formulations are the highest usage with limited digestive upset.
Cofactors or synergistic minerals make the magnesium even more optimally uptake.

Your Body, Your Journey

If you still experience digestive problems when taking magnesium, the question to ask is, Why?
Every body is different and ideally we need to personalise your health plan. Most likely you have digestive changes in your microbiome and therefore dealing with this first is recommended. 
Removing overgrowths of opportunistic bacteria, parasites or fungal infections within the digestive tract will resolve reactions with magnesium supplements. 
Ideally it is recommended to make an appointment with a practitioner to make a personal plan for you which gives optimal improvements and in the end saves you a lot of money and time!