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I'd always believe a doctor over anonymous internet experiences. If your doctor thinks it's not helpful, follow their advice. I found my cramps stopped, but anecdata is not evidence.

While _on the whole_ I would side with doctors over random people on the Internet, I've had a number of cases where the doctor has been outright wrong, whether misdiagnosis, or not being up to date with current research.

The doctor didn't say it doesn't work. Just that it's not scientific.

But if your lived experience says it works, it doesn't really need to have scientific evidence.

The real question is if there is evidence that relevant doesea of magnesium supplements are harmful, and if so, how those harms compare to the cramps you're experiencing.

There's all sorts of unscientific stuff out there, some of which is harmful. But if it's not harmful, it's worth trying.

If you get frequent cramps and you don't want to try magnesium supplements, you could try going out of your way to eat more foods that are known to be high in magnesium, most of which are generally considered healthy and there you go; choosing to eat a bit more leafy greens doesn't feel risky unless you've got an alergy. Having a banana to get potasium should be fine for most too, unless the fruit sugar is a problem or if there's an allergy.

But it works for me and I know more anecdata cases.

Maybe it depends on technical cause of what seems to be cramps. And maybe it helps indirectly by helping some other process in the body. But in ny experience there’s direct correlation between magnesium intake and cramps and nail health.

I’ve a feeling genetics may be involved since my kid also has similar tendencies. And doctor we went to for his night cramps did suggest magnesium which worked. So whether there’s research or not, doctors do suggest it and it does seem to help at least in some cases.

As always with supplements, a deficiency might cause the issue (cramps in this case) and the supplement gets you back to normal levels, preventing cramps. If you’re experiencing cramps but don’t have a magnesium deficiency, taking magnesium supplements won’t make the cramps go away.

When I started running I had horrible cramps and the mg made them much less severe.

Running for a year now, it doesn't seem to make a difference.

From experience it does work in cases where through intensive training and very high 'sweating' both from cardio training and saunas you temd to lose a lot of minerals.

Go train hard in heat/summer until you get cramps. Then get electolytes to fix it in a couple of minutes.

Source: I can reproduce this on demand.

When I have a cramp in my calf and I take mg in powder form it goes away within a minute. I am also no longer able to trigger a cramp which I can before taking mg. I don't think a placebo would work that quick and that well.

I mean you should take magnesium if you are deficient on a blood test. If you take too much magnesium you will just get diarrhea.

The non-blood test way would be to take magnesium until you get diarrhea and then take less but that is obviously not a pleasant experience.

I take magnesium because it is really obvious when I track micro nutrients that I don't get enough in my diet. It mostly depends though on how much spinach I am eating.

Blood test may not be reliable indicator of magnesium in the body.

from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6316205/

    Of clinical importance, around 0.3% of total body magnesium is found in serum. Thus, total and/or ionized magnesium concentrations measured in plasma or serum are not reliable markers of total magnesium levels in the body; as serum magnesium does not reflect the total magnesium content at the tissue or organs, and is also a poor indicator of intracellular magnesium content.

    Emerging evidence suggests that the serum magnesium/calcium quotient (0.4 is optimal, 0.36–0.28 too low) is a more practical and sensitive indicator of magnesium status and/or turnover, than the serum magnesium level alone [19]. In chronic latent magnesium deficiency, magnesium levels in the blood are within a normal range, despite there being severely depleted magnesium content in the tissues and bones. Therefore, using magnesium levels in the blood to determine total magnesium levels in the body can result in underestimation of magnesium deficiency in healthy and diseased populations. Recent studies have shown that individuals with serum magnesium levels around 1.82 mg/dL (0.75 mmol/L) are most likely to have a magnesium deficiency, while those with serum magnesium level more than 2.07 mg/dL (0.85 mmol/L) are most likely to have adequate levels

Magnesium deficiency causes muscle spasms and cramps. That's a fact.

If you're experiencing muscle cramps due to low magnesium then adding a supplement will almost certainly fix the problem.

If you're experiencing muscle cramps for another reason, it won't work, probably.

But supplements are cheap and low risk, so it's a good thing to try first.

A more accurate statement would be "there is no scientific proof that Mg works against cramps [absent a Mg deficiency]."

Last time I did a deep dive into this, found a few papers suggesting that it can be any salt imbalance (potassium, magnesium or calcium) that triggers cramps.

However, potassium and calcium are a lot more prevalent in standard diets so it's usually lack of magnesium that is the culprit.