Hello,

I wanted to share my story in hopes that it might help someone else. As a young, healthy, fit raw foodist for 2 years now, the last thing I ever would’ve expected was to develop heart problems. I thought you could only get heart problems if you were older and ate a standard western type diet.

For months I had ignored tiredness, muscle twitches, skipped heartbeats and occasional tightness in my chest as nothing to worry about. Later I also started experiencing abdominal cramping that wasn’t PMS-related. Then one day my heart started racing and I got really panicked so I went to the emergency room and was diagnosed with heart palpitations. They said it was nothing serious, just stay away from caffeine, etc. I was pretty shocked that I had had an abnormal EKG, since my EKG’s have always been normal. I had an EKG a few months into raw and I was fine. So what happened?? I was baffled. The only thing I could think of was that maybe the zeolite I was taking had depleted some heart-essential mineral? I certainly didn't think my diet could be the problem.

For the next few days I continued to experience intermittent racing heartbeats lasting an hour or two at a time. I would have to close my eyes and meditate in order to slow my heart rate. This happened even while I was just laying in bed. I had been researching Natural Hygiene at the time, so I decided that as a last resort I would fast. I couldn’t think of anything I could do to improve my diet, so I decided to just eat nothing and let my body heal itself. I lay in bed for 3 days eating nothing and my heart only seemed to be getting worse, not better. I was terrified. I had chest pain all the time, my heart would race and all the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up and feel prickly several times a day, I was really scared. I had an impending sense of doom and was frustrated because I couldn’t think of what else I could be doing right.

For days I stayed away from the internet because anytime I started searching for answers I would see the words “heart attack” everywhere which would just signal another panic attack and racing heart, and I would have to lay my head on a pillow and focus on meditation to slow my heart and calm me down. For the most part I was too weak to get out of bed at all. Even when my heart wasn’t racing, I felt nowhere near normal. I didn’t tell anyone what was going on because my worst fear was that someone would send an ambulance to come get me, and I’d wake up in the ER with disastrous heart medications injected into me and end up with permanent heart damage. By this time I had read plenty about the medical treatments for cardiac problems, and I wanted nothing to do with any of them. They all sounded grim and barbaric. Reading about the treatments, and thinking about any of them being performed on me, made me nearly pass out.

I was having frequent and recurring heart palpitations even while resting. Somehow my heart rhythm had become de-stabilized.

Through all my fear and panic, I still had some lucid moments where deep down I knew there was a natural cure and I was determined to find it. However, it was taking me a long time because I kept having to take breaks from the internet in order to calm down.

Since fasting wasn’t working, I decided to start trying raw foods one by one to see what might help. I had some vague notion that potassium was important for the heart, and then on the internet the other heart-essential mineral I found was magnesium. Magnesium? I didn’t think I was deficient in magnesium, but I suppose that’s just because I knew nothing about it.

Magnesium is found in things like wheatgrass juice, lima beans, nuts, seeds, beans, whole grains, spinach and other leafy greens, and chocolate. Basically, things that as a raw foodist, I had kind of stopped eating or been eating much less of during my past 2 years eating raw.

I decided to give spinach & wheatgrass juices a try to see if maybe they would help. I didn’t want to touch nuts or cooked food after several days of fasting. The spinach & wheatgrass worked. AMAZINGLY. A miracle happened when I drank 2 ounces of wheatgrass – there was sudden calmness in my chest. My heart stopped racing. Woohoo! I was ecstatic.

Within a day or two of drinking wheatgrass juice and large green juices, I was up and moving about. Whenever my heart started racing, I walked to the corner health food store and got more wheatgrass shots & green juices. I drank a lot of wheatgrass shots & green juices. Quite a lot. And the scary, crazy racing heartbeats tapered off and normalized. I knew I was going to be ok. Then over the next month my remaining occasional chest pain also tapered off as I continued to eat a magnesium-rich diet. By this time I had started eating cooked lima beans, as well. Funny thing about lima beans – I was craving them before, but chose not to eat them because they weren’t raw. How foolish of me.

The only couple times thereafter that I noticed chest pain again was in the few days before my period. Magnesium levels drop in those PMS days. That’s also why we crave chocolate. Chocolate, like most other beany things, is high in magnesium.

MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY SYMPTOMS:

Low energy, irritability, moodiness, cramps, sensitivity to noise, anorexia, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, muscle twitches, headaches, poor memory, apathy, confusion, skipped heartbeats, hair loss, weak bones & teeth, digestive problems, constipation, heart palpitations, angina, arrhythmia, tingling, numbness, sustained contraction of the muscles, hallucinations, delirium, and heart attack.

When I read that exercise & sweating deplete magnesium, it suddenly made sense to me why you sometimes hear about young, fit, healthy people who suddenly just “drop dead” of a heart attack despite having no known risk factors.

Places that have a higher magnesium to calcium ratio in their drinking water also have the lowest rates of sudden death from cardiac arrest.

SUPPLEMENTS & FRUIT:

I’m generally against supplements although I did buy a magnesium supplement. The bottle said take 1 400mg tablet twice daily. Ok, sure – if you happen to be really low in magnesium that day. There were a couple days when apparently I wasn’t so low, and just 1 tablet overdosed me. Later I read that the daily Upper Tolerable Limit for magnesium supplements is 350mg. grrr. Why do supplement manufacturers do that?? Anyone who says magnesium is not dangerous to overdose on has apparently never experienced the discomfort of taking too much. My heart felt really weird from it. So if you take a magnesium supplement, be careful. It’s much better to get it from food.

The couple days I took too much magnesium, I had to search for non-magnesium foods to eat. The only foods I could find (besides meat – no thanks) that contained little to no magnesium were fruit. Some fruit does contain magnesium but most fruit contains very little.

I found this to be an extremely important discovery – that magnesium is our most important mineral yet fruit is generally low in it. I think this could answer a lot of people’s health issues on raw.

Spinach & chocolate:

If you decide to use these as magnesium sources, don’t do like I did and use them exclusively. After weeks of eating a lot of spinach & chocolate everyday, I ended up nearly poisoning myself. I had forgotten that both are high in oxalic acid. I felt really “off” for a couple days. Wheatgrass is now my favorite because it’s raw and doesn’t have the oxalic acid problem.

Rebuilding my body’s magnesium took quite a while. I got progressively better over 1-2 months. I eat magnesium foods everyday now. They keep me energetic, happy, and calm. I read somewhere that the body stores 25,000mg of magnesium, and that the body keeps the circulating blood levels at a constant, since it is such an essential mineral. This is why low magnesium doesn’t show up on a routine blood test.

Eating enough magnesium foods, I feel better now than I ever have in my entire life.

Thank you for that. Awesome and glad to hear you feel better.

I have been keeping this in mind, as well as zinc, and think that in addition to everything else I eat, including cacao, I will eat bean sprouts (I'm talking non-mung here) once a week as well.

[utopiankitchen.wordpress.com]

thanks so much for sharing your story. very interesting.

WOW...

sunshine79, that is a very scary but extremely important story that you shared.

I never realized that some raw foodists might be deficient in magnesium.

I have known about the link between magnesium, potassium and heart attacks for years because my grandfather was an alcoholic. Eveyone thought he would die of cirrosis of the liver but he was in his doctor's office, ironically, when he suffered a heart attack and almost died. Had he not been at the hospital, he would have. When they tested him, he had no potassium or magnesium in his body, and that's why his heart stopped. Unfortunately, it was just a few weeks later that he did pass from a failed heart.

Because of my experiences in fitness training, the raw staples of my diet, even when I was also eating meat, have always been leafy greens (mostly spinach) beans, nuts and I used to eat one banana every day. Until this past year.

Over the last year, I was extremely stressed out and then became depressed. I stopped juicing wheatgrass, I stopped eating right and descended into eating microwaved frozen dinners because I just stopped caring.

I can tell you that when my diet changed, the first sysmptom was heart palpitations. After a EKG that showed no abnormalities, I was told the same thing you were by a mainstream doctor: "No caffiene". He never asked what I was or was not eating.

I had panic attacks so bad I couldn't leave the house. I was experiencing at least ten of the symptoms of magnesium defficency, the most notable to others being irratibility and anxiety.

Since I returned to eating naturally and reconnecting with my body's needs, I have experienced fewer symptoms and as I continue to heal I'm sure I will not experience any at all.

The information about magnesium deficiency and a woman's monthly period is something I never knew, but now that TOTALLY makes sense! LOL Thank goodness for raw chocolate!

Thank you again for sharing that story and all of the good information...

Cheers! Marley

It sounds like you have mitral valve prolapse. I have it, too, and it's generally harmless. It's a terrifying feeling. But if this is what you have, then you'll be happy to know that you're not having a heart attack, and it is easily cured. For me, caffeine aggravates it. Even green tea, which I love, I cannot drink. Chocolate is definitely out.

I thought I was having a heart attack, too. And panic attacks. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, since I'm healthy, eat well, exercize, practice yoga, meditate, the whole bit. So I tried the low-magnesium theory, too, until my case became so bad I finally broke down and saw a doctor. She put me on this all-night heart recording device, then told me I had MVP. So she put me on a beta blocker (since I refused to stop drinking tea and coffee and eating chocolate). I've since gone off the medication, and now control it through diet. Magnesium supplementation did nothing for me.

I have been gravitating toward high-magnesium foods since I've gone raw, without even thinking about it--and craving them like wild. I have to add coconut and durian to the list of foods with a considerable amount, since no one mentioned them and they are my lovers. <3

Thank you for sharing your story. That's particularly interesting about the lima beans... Goes to show our bodies know what they are asking for. Valuable insight!

I put my food into fitday for nutritional information (it's not perfect but has most foods) and the only ones I'm low on sometimes are the ones I get elsewhere (b12 and vit d) and also zinc and selenium. but i've nevertheless met the needs w/o a problem, even at lower fat today, 20% of calories.

I'm usually 300% of the RDA of magnesium.

[utopiankitchen.wordpress.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2008 03:53AM by Utopian Life.

thanks, great post. I take Pumpkin and Sesame seeds for my magnesium intake.

hi sunshine

very inspiring how you decided to trust yourself to know the answer
and go for it

beautiful story
what a harrowing experience you had

i love greens (especially green juice)

i think i would be at a loss without them

i'm so grateful that i have access to good organic greens

i'm one lucky duck!!

That is SO interesting...Now I'm wondering whether I need more magnesium too.

So...are sprouted beans as good as cooked for magnesium? And lima beans...are they chickpeas? or "butter" beans?

Claire

I have just been looking into sources of magnesium and have noticed that nuts are also high! I have such cravings for nuts! I'm sure there are other reasons for this, but maybe it's also magnesium...

Claire

sunshine, thank you so much for sharing this. I did some research on magnesium after reading this and have printed out a list of foods rich in magnesium with a reminder to myself to have some every day.
I'm really glad you were able to find this out and help yourself get better.

god, reading this strikes a chord in me. i've always wondered if there is something wrong with my heart, but haven't had money for tons of tests. i always go to bed with a racing heart, and it will race during the day, and i constantly get chest pains that feel like pinched nerves. i wonder if this is it? i'm going to start drinking green juice and see how that works. of course, before, i smoked frequently, but it was a different kind of pounding than the type i experienced after a cigarette.

thanks for the great information!

sorry, there was a mistake



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2008 09:23AM by greenpower.

Sunshine, your story is so scaring. Great you found out for yourselves what your body needed. It just shows once more that "raw" is not per definition healthy, it all depends on WHAT (and how) we are actually eating. Others like you are still struggling, not understanding what is going on, as we can not rely on medical doctors who don't have the knowledge we need on our raw path. Thanks for sharing!

Greenpower

Visit my website and my blog!

[www.natureshealingsecrets.com] (closed on Sundays)

Thanks for sharing your story. I found your writing inspiring because of your attitude and actions. Being ill is scary and it isn't always easy to take matters into our own hands but, greatly due to the internet, we can find answers for ourselves. It seems to me like the answer is usually trying to find us also. I'm sorry you had to go through that but am so glad you grew from the experience and shared it with us.

Amazing story sunshine!

I'm so glad you are feeling better. Thanks for taking the time to post this as I'm sure that your experience will help so many people.

Aloha Nui Loa,

Greg

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. - William James

There is no pill that can be swallowed,
There is no guru, that can be followed, - Michael Franti (Pray For Grace)

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. - Albert Camus

Sunshine, I enjoy reading your posts... that's a wild story, though it doesn't surprise me. The body is made of minerals & vitamins. New born babys are composed of minerals & vitamins. It shouldn't take Poindexter, to figure out, that not one fruit or veggie has every mineral & vitamin the body requires. Fruit is high salicylates and low in vitamin K. Salicylates cancel out vitamin K. Bleeding disorders are because of this. You will bleed to death without vitamin K. Greens are high in vitamin K and most vegetables are low in salicylates. Fruits with greens is the most intelligible way to go.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2008 10:11PM by Rawrrr!.

As far as I can tell, aside from the extraordinarily rare congenital heart condition (which usually results in death before you are able to write an entry in a blog like this), most heart conditions are caused by imbalances in electrolytes, exercise, sympathetic/parasympathetic activity, etc.

Take it easy, go for a walk, ....hydrate....do what you KNOW is right, not what some wahoo with a degree (those who know don't need "certification" tells you, unless s/he is coming from love.

You can do better. Do better.

Love,
Paul

[www.oneillpaul.com-a.googlepages.com]

Sunshine, Glad you listened to your body and found a solution to your problems. I use Peter Gillham's Natural Calm Magnesium, myself. I always take it when I feel cramping, a Charlie Horse, hiccups, etc. as those are indicators that my muscles are not relaxing.

Glad to hear everything worked out in the end sunshine! Hope you're feeling a lot better now As a good rule of thumb, it's worth staying at or above 80% RDA in everything, and people can check their levels using free online programs such as www.fitday.com , very important! A lot of minerals and vitamins come quite easily on a raw foods diet, but it's good to check calcium, magnesium, zinc and niacin (among others) to make sure one gets at least 80%.

Best wishes,
J

Sounds like the side effects of raw cacoa. Go to www.rawlife.com and look at health articles on right side of page. Click on raw chocolate article. It is SAD but soo true...I have found this personally. Blessings!

Kris wow - I have just read about cacoa on that link. I think everybody should read it and then perhaps a huge discusson will ensue.