Thread: In praise of Epsom Salts - miraculous stuff!

For some 4-5 years I have been having a 15-20 minute ES bath (a metric cup 250ml dissolved in a bath water volume of approx 135 litres increasing to about 150 litres by the addition of hot water only throughout the bath). Without exception I feel significantly less sore, less stiff and less tired after the bath.

There have been a number of occasions when I have run out of ES and just have a normal bath. The result is nowhere near as good but there is some relief (better than nothing). On some of these occasions I have substituted cooking salt (NaCl). I regard it as quite useless. You could call these the "control" baths.

I do quite a lot of physical work, and may have up to four ES baths per week (hence why I can run out of them )

I have nowhere near the number of repetitions of this process compared to muscle soreness. However, in the one and only test of this I was STAGGERED at the recovery. Two days ago I got sat on my butt because I slipped in the back steps. My right wrist and left hand both broke the fall, and I had no butt injury to speak of. The right wrist has a 10 x 1 cm graze which is no big deal. However, my left hand was bent backwards and this a very bad sprain, similar to a sprain in that same hand from 4 years ago where my thumb was bent backwards to my wrist.

REWIND: This former injury has never really healed properly and when it goes "out" my left thumb and forefinger can get an extremely sharp pain with certain movements. I have to constantly rotate my thumb until it "clicks" when I can feel it coming on, and then it is back to ok again. At least I haven't had to use a thumb splint for the last 12 months (good, because it promoted wart growth in places that I never had warts before).

FAST FORWARD: This hand sprain from two days ago was causing me great concern because of the level of pain with ANY movement, including such onerous exertions as picking up an object weighing perhaps 20 to 30grams (like an eating fork). I was deeply concerned that this would be a long term injury from which I may never fully recover, and that it would severely interrupt my current shed building (I'm a woodworker). In fact, I was on the border of a depression from these thoughts, so acute was the injury.

For a few hours I wrapped the lower wrist and upper hand in an elastic bandage. This achieved bugger all in pain reduction, but at least restricted unnecessary movements which would cause great pain. Typing on a keyboard was pretty much a one handed affair. (Ctrl B using left little finger and forefinger was VERY painful).

About 10 hours after the injury occurred I had my usual ES bath quite deliberately to see what would happen with my wrist injury. There was not much immediate relief and I retired to bed a worried man.

When I woke up yesterday morning I was absolutely STUNNED at the improvement. There is still some very very slight swelling on the back of my hand and at the distal end of the ulna. However, I was able to carry on with physical work (I eschewed lifting heavy objects for safety), and I had very minimal pain throughout yesterday. In fact I recall only one "ah $%^@!" for the entire day - due to pain, that is (on Friday the local atmosphere was quite blue by comparison).

Another ES bath last night and there is further improvement, but nowhere near as dramatic as previously, simply because there was very little left to improve upon by comparison. I can now do virtually all complex movements - but not to the limit - and I have only a bit of discomfort and stiffness.

This is nothing short of an astonishing recovery - less than 48 hours after the injury occurred. All due to two ES baths of 15-20 minutes. This is extremely clear evidence to me, given the nature of the two almost identical injuries (but to different parts of the same hand), and their associated healing times. HOURS COMPARED TO YEARS!!!

I can rest my chin on my hand, use my hand to pull myself up, and Ctrl B is no problem at all. See:
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B
Ctrl B


Nothing at all!


My wrist is already starting to click regularly, as of yesterday - a sure sign of recovery well underway. (I'd love to know what the clicking is all about - nobody seems to know for sure).

What you're experiencing is due to the magnesium. Magnesium salts are used for the treatment of pre-eclampsia, experimentally in treating migraine and brain injury, it plays a positive role in psychological depression and diabetes and of course for soaking and so on. Magnesium sulfate has anti-inflammatory effects with a similar spectrum of activity to aspirin. It is thought that it interferes with or modulates the activity of signal pathways normally mediated by calcium (pain). Here's an interesting review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23674807

About six months ago it came to me that ES will prevent and cure tinea. I am prone to it on my feet, particularly with a certain pair of track shoes, and most attractively indeed, in my groin. For a fair period of last year I had no ES and therefore no baths. The tinea in my groin returned and I treated it with a 6% solution of H2O2 which is extremely effective, by the way. It will also kill Ringworm - I've seen it. I use H2O2 at 1½% as a mouth wash and so it is always to hand. I got into the habit of about once or twice a week giving my groin a dab with 6% as a preventative measure.

A few months ago, whilst reclining in an ES bath (with a renewed supply) it came to me that I hadn't had any groin tinea for some time. "AHA!" says I, "it must be the ES" (I had some vague recollection of it being anti-fungal). Somewhere around this period I had started wearing a new pair of Merrell brand shoes. They gave me instant tinea (and I may have between "between baths" at this point). The little blisters that are the start of tinea were quite pronounced this time, and full of white blood cells. I could feel them quite distinctly when I walked, even though they were in the arch of my foot. "Rightio" says I, "let's test my ES/Tinea theory". So I burst the little blisters and had a few ES baths over 4-5 days. Tinea gone without a trace in a week - during which I was still wearing the Merrells every day.

My partner currently has another bout of Pityriasis versicolour (apparently Tinea by another name - I only learnt this just now whilst researching the spelling) which is covering her entire back. We believe that this comes from carrying a backpack, and the associated sweat which cannot evaporate. We have previously successfully treated this with H2O2, but this time we are trying ES by spraying a saturated solution on her back and drying it with a hair dryer - forms a nice crust of ES. This of course means that she has to walk around topless for a while afterwards, so as not to rub it off too quickly - a not unpleasant side effect. So far I can see that the colour is not as strong but it is still very much present, and we may use some H2O2 as well.

When this has recovered back to normal skin she is going to keep up the ES baths twice per week as a preventative measure - will keep you posted on that.

About four years ago a friend switched us on to a new deodorant which is just a crystal of some salt manufactured into a stick in a plastic holder. Simply wet the end or rub onto wet arm pits. It works exceptionally well and is very cheap by comparison ($10 for a stick that lasts two people about a year).


I have long been deeply suspicious that this is a very simple salt. It's clear and the same appearance as a mono-crystal of sea salt or perhaps gypsum. I asked some questions of a geologist friend but we couldn't come to a conclusion.


A month ago I finally got a decent supply of ES (25kg for $60 delivered), and can now use it with gay abandon. I had run out of ES for a month before this and it was then that I was absolutely convinced beyond doubt about the remedial properties - I was sore for a long time without any relief).


Last week I dissolved 400 grams of ES in 500mls of boiling water to form a saturated solution. No salt precipitated out during cooling. Talk about Heavy Water! For a few days I used this as a deodorant spray in place of the stick - absolutely the same excellent result. Just a small amount on the fingers rubbed into the pits, or spray the pits and self-rub in. Works brilliantly! This means that I have made about 750 mls of deodorant for about one dollar. This is the solution that is being used on my partner's back.



So, all in all, ES is remarkable stuff with many applications (gardening as well). Whilst my tests and observations are not empirically studied, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind about the claimed properties of remedial, healing, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial, and I am just gobsmacked by the wrist sprain healing time.


I do not intend to find out what the anti-constipational properties are - it tastes like crap (a few molecules of the saturated solution on my tongue tip told me that).

Originally Posted by rob streeper

What you're experiencing is due to the magnesium.

Yes indeed Rob. Thanks for that link, I'll read it right now. The research I've looked at so far indicates that nobody really knows for sure what is going on, or how the magnesium penetrates to the body.

Interesting comment about depression......

It is also great for yellowing of leaves on Camellias. Sprinkle around the roots and water in.

Dissolved salts are one of the reasons that places like this (http://www.budapest.com/city_guide/s...h.en.html?sid=) are so highly thought of.

On the magnesium point I think that it works like this: All cells have what is called a plasma membrane, basically a greasy bubble that separates the inside of the cell from the rest of the world. For multi-cellular life to exist the cells that make up the organism have to communicate with each other. They do this by a variety of means including sending electrical/ionic impulses, through physical contact and associated stresses but also, an very importantly, by secreting soluble molecules. These soluble molecules can be as simple as ions such as sodium and potassium or they can be big complex molecules like antibodies. Nonetheless all of these molecules carry messages. To 'hear' the messages cells need to have receptors for the signals, and many of the receptors are situated on the plasma membrane acting as molecular ears. One type of membrane receptor includes the ion channels. There are a variety of different kinds but predominant among them are those involved in passing sodium, potassium and calcium. The ion channels tend to specialize in one or two types of ions. Calcium channels can pass magnesium because the solution charge state of both is +2. Mitochondria, the little energy factories in your cells, are critically dependent on calcium signalling too. Flooding the system with magnesium, normally present at levels much lower than calcium, temporarily slows or mutes calcium signaling. By thus changing calcium signaling the other types of signaling between cells also changes. Tap one part of a bell and the whole bell rings, not just the part tapped. One of these types of signalling is colloquially referred to as inflammatory signaling or inflammation. How magnesiums interference with calcium signaling interferes with overall inflammatory signaling is incompletely known but we do know that magnesium is an anti-inflammatory agent. ES has been in use for a very long time and the cumulative experience shows it has benefit, our understanding is not required.

Originally Posted by rob streeper

.....the cumulative experience shows it has benefit, our understanding is not required.

Hear hear!. Just do it.

Here are some links to non-paywalled papers - read and use with great care! You have only one life!!

Depression: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23950577

Diabetes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25618121, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25405132 (!), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15223977

Alzheimers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23658180

Arthritis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22511536

I don't have any financial interest in magnesium supplements of any kind.

Thanks for starting this FF!!!

Thanks to others for contributing!!

I shall try this as I have persistent tinea and I think the usual treatments are no longer effective.