Several years ago, I read all about magnesium deficiency, but for some reason I didn’t really think it applied to my particular set of circumstances. Boy, was I wrong! Many times when it comes to our health, we grossly overestimate our health status. I had a holistic practitioner kindly tell me that I needed to simply look up all of the symptoms of magnesium deficiency again and look at them with more openness to the idea. I already owned some magnesium oil and had used it a few times and didn’t notice much of a difference other than it burned my skin. I really needed a magnesium oil recipe, so I could DIY the solution myself.

At the time, the problem was that I wasn’t using enough to get any actual benefit and I needed to dilute it to make it work for myself and my family. I’m not going to list all of the signs and symptoms of magnesium deficiency, because quite frankly, I don’t want readers to simply take my word for it. Feel free to do your own research. FYI, the lists of symptoms are extensive.

Some of the symptoms my family had were:

-Restless legs during pregnancy (me)

-Attention deficit issues (one child and one adult)

-Restless sleep or difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep (one child and one adult)

-Occasional constipation (a few of the children)

-Headaches

-Tests showing that we had heavy metals in our body, particularly aluminum that would chelate out with additional magnesium

-Random aches and pains

-Muscle soreness for no apparent reason

 

At one point I had tried oral magnesium supplements and they made our stomachs hurt. Topical magnesium is absorbed through the skin and doesn’t cause the same problem. Adequate magnesium is hard to obtain these days because the food supply is very depleted due to farming practices.

Deficiency can also come from ingesting fluoride (the kind in the water supply, in toothpaste, some medications and given in dental offices), which competes with magnesium. To aid in my desire to keep our magnesium stores in normal range, I bought a Berkley water filter to get rid of all the fluoride in our drinking water. At that point, along with topical supplementation, our symptoms disappeared.

I decided to make my own magnesium oil because it is so, so cheap. It’s important to me to be able to have a budget and to be able to stick to our budget! It’s also so incredibly easy! One bag of magnesium chloride flakes lasts my family for almost a year. Therefore, I buy magnesium chloride flakes online to make the magnesium oil and it lasts nearly a year. This includes me giving away 3/4 of a gallon of the solution to a friend yearly.

While magnesium sulfate from epsom salts is great for baths, it doesn’t have the same properties to stay in the body as long as magnesium from magnesium chloride does. Also, it’s called an oil because magnesium chloride has an oily feel to it, even within a solution.

Fill any size jar halfway up with magnesium flakes. You can buy them here. 

Fill the rest of the jar up with fluoride free water from either water that has actually removed the fluoride (like a Berkley filter here or reverse osmosis and some brands of spring water). Put a lid on it and give it a good shake. After a few hours, the flakes will be completely dissolved and the solution can be shaken again and put into a spray bottle. You can find spray bottles here. 

Save the extra in the jar for refills of your spray bottle. I’ve made large jars that kept for months and months and have never had any signs of deterioration or mold. 

 

I’m not a physician or health practitioner of any kind. I’m simply sharing what works for my family. Here’s the amount of magnesium oil that works for us:

At first the adults needed 20 sprays a day. Now we need 10-15.

I give the kids of 7 sprays a day. If you aren’t getting results, up it to 10-12. For babies and toddlers, I do 3 sprays a day.

 

I spray the bottoms of the feet for babies and toddlers at bedtime. Everyone else sprays all over the place on the stomach and back. If it stings, choose another area. If it still stings, dilute with more water and do a few more sprays to make up for the additional dilution.