[songbird]

Hi all : I have been coming here for 10 years; without help from the people here I would have probably had to have my colon removed. I took MOM for a long time; it made me sick; fortunately I found that taking Magnesium citrate pills does the job quite well; here is my problem; i am in my 60's and I take 1400 mg of mag every single day; it is the only thing that works. I have kidney function tests every year and so far, so good. but as one ages, the kidney's don't function the way they did when a person is younger and eventually i could have a problem taking the magnesium; i am trying to think of how to deal with this future possibility so i thought if I could take Miralax with the magnesium, i could reduce the magnesium; i tried Miralax by itself and it doesn't work for me; it was useless. I am looking for advice on how much miralax to take and how much i should reduce the magnesium to try and find a combination that would work for me. I really appreciate any help you can provide; this board has been a Godsend let me tell you.Thanks so muchMarilyn

 

[Kathleen M.]

Here is an ideaStart with a low amount of miralax and build up until you start getting too loose/watery then drop down the Magnesium until you are under 1000 mgs of magnesium a day (usually recommended top dose, and if you can drop a bit lower so you have room from the diet). The problem there is you might have a few days of things being too loose and that can be an issue, but may be better than getting backed up.As you drop off the Magnesium you might need to up the miralax a bit more. Luckily you can usually keep upping the dose of miralax pretty safely.Basically build one up until there is an effect then drop the other down. Usually for the severely constipated they tend to be better off if they don't let things get too backed up for too long, so adding one in until things are loose then dropping the other back down may be a better approach.

 

[songbird]

Kathleen: thanks for your response; the only kind of stool i have is loose and watery; it has been this way for 20 years; it is the only way I can go; does that change anything?

 

[Kathleen M.]

That may make it hard to know if you are getting enough miralax to where you can drop down the magnesium dose, but you may have to track how watery (if it goes all water) or if you go more times a day to know when you have enough you can taper things a bit.

 

[lizbeth]

As we are still in a tight economy, You may want to spend less on the remedy.Not sure where you live but in US you can buy over-the counter Miralax or what is now Purelax in CVS Stores at much lower price. Hope you feel better.

 

[songbird]

thanks for the info and thanks for the good thoughts; will look into getting the stuff cheaper