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A Case Study: Postpartum Calcium/Magnesium Deficiency

Annie had called me requesting an emergency appointment, saying that she had "thrown her back out" when lifting her 3-week-old daughter. She had spent the subsequent days in bed since standing and walking led to pain. Annie had previously presented with excellent posture, no pain, and a normal spine.
Once she was in my office, she exposed her pelvis and lower back. I saw severe lateral functional scoliosis. It was so extreme on one side of her sacroiliac joint, that the ilium appeared to sit above, rather than beside, the sacrum. After discussing it, our theory was that the hormone that accompanies pregnancy,relaxin, had led to hypermobility in her pelvis; when she bent over, something had gone out of place. Annie assured me that massage would feel good and do no harm since she had been getting non-professional massage from relatives for days. She felt that she had tracked the culprit down as her psoas muscle, but no one knew how to work on it.

So, we spent about an hour working on her pelvis and lower back with a focus on the psoas. Her pain went away completely and she said, "You fixed me!" She stood up and I redid her postural analysis, but there was only a slight change. As soon as she began walking, it was clear that the massage did little good and her pain returned. I encouraged her to see a D.C. (chiropractor), M.D. (doctor) or D.O. (osteopath), since I didn't feel comfortable working more aggressively on her.

Luckily, she did see her chiropractor and disclosed that she had stopped taking her vitamin supplements because her breastmilk was giving her daughter gas. The chiropractor suspected mineral deficiency. Annie began taking a Calcium/Magnesium supplement. She experienced immediate improvement of her condition and was completely better within 48 hours.

So, how did this happen? World's Healthiest Foods describes the role of magnesium and calcium and nerve in muscle relaxation as follows:
Magnesium and its fellow macronutrient, calcium, act together to help regulate the body's nerve and muscle tone. In many nerve cells, magnesium serves as a chemical gate blocker – as long as there is enough magnesium around, calcium can't rush into the nerve cell and activate the nerve. This gate blocking by magnesium helps keep the nerve relaxed. If our diet provides us with too little magnesium, this gate blocking can fail and the nerve cell can become overactivated. When some nerve cells are overactivated, they can send too many messages to the muscles and cause the muscles to overcontract. This chain of events helps explain how magnesium deficiency can trigger muscle tension, muscle soreness, muscle spasms, muscle cramps, and muscle fatigue.
More specifically, we can examine the role of calcium and magnesium in the normal contraction and release of skeletal muscles. First a signal comes from the central nervous system to a neuron at the muscle site. This triggers calcium to be released through a voltage-gated channel, and the resulting change in electrical charge creates the action potential that spreads throughout the muscle. The calcium chemically binds followed by some other chemical processes that cause the small sarcomeres, basically protein bundles within muscle cells, to shorten. A chemical called ATP (which requires magnesium) is what releases that sarcomere or puts it in a "cocked back" position. The process of contraction can continue as long as ATP is present and calcium is available at the site.

If calcium is no longer available, it is typically leached from other areas of the body, but can result in improper muscle contraction. If magnesium is unavailable, it cannot produce ATP, which puts the muscle into a rigor state.

All is well that ends well and Annie now has magnesium and calcium galore. Her muscles are contracting and releasing other important calcium stores in her body (like her bones) are safe. I had never seen anything like this nor had any of the other practitioners that I spoke with, so I am noting it in my experience as a remarkable example of mineral deficiency.

Written by: DeAnnaTibbs, CMT