Fingers crossed Vitamin D is my fix!

[palerider]

my vit d level was down to 12ng/ml. D3 is not covered by my insurance, but d2 (Ergocalciferol 1.25 MG (50000 UT) Oral Capsule 1 Capsule once a week) is covered so thats what i take. now my level is 48.

You can get 600 2000iu capsules of D3 from Costco, if you've got one withing driving distance, they're $9.99 for that,

If you get it mail order, it's a little more.

[palerider]

I've been following vitamin D research for a few years.

Vitamin D and COVID?
Sure, the correlation between Vitamin D and COVID severity is interesting because there's an inverse correlation between the two. The topic was of great interest after Gold and colleagues noticed various interesting corrections. But that set of correlations is starting to look spurious and the more recent results are pretty mixed.

I'll just leave this here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/

Results

Of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission (50 %) p value X2 Fischer test p < 0.001. Univariate Risk Estimate Odds Ratio for ICU in patients with Calcifediol treatment versus without Calcifediol treatment: 0.02 (95 %CI 0.002−0.17). Multivariate Risk Estimate Odds Ratio for ICU in patients with Calcifediol treatment vs Without Calcifediol treatment ICU (adjusting by Hypertension and T2DM): 0.03 (95 %CI: 0.003-0.25). Of the patients treated with calcifediol, none died, and all were discharged, without complications. The 13 patients not treated with calcifediol, who were not admitted to the ICU, were discharged. Of the 13 patients admitted to the ICU, two died and the remaining 11 were discharged.

also: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 638v2.full

[USMCVet]

I laid it all out there including exhaustion, muscle pain and spasms, muscle fatiguability, and basically whole body hurts.

That was me several years ago. Vitamin D3 was PART of the answer but not the whole thing. My pain went away, DISAPPEARED, GONE, when I eliminated grains and sugar from my diet. When I cheat, it comes back. I have plenty of energy, never tired during the day anymore. I think the D3 is really good with my immune system, I almost never get sick anymore. Another thing that seems to have helped a lot is daily fish oil.

BTW, Vitamin D3 is a hormone and it works in synergy with other fat soluble hormones, especially Vitamin K2.

What kind of pain? Some of mine seems nuerological and other seems muscle fatigue. Basically my whole body feels like I'm sick all the time. Rest does not help much. If I do nothing and lounge for 4 days straight I get mild relief but other then that it just progressively gets worse and massage helps lessen it. Tylenol used to help too but that doesn't help as much either.

I had tendons on one hand hurt and swell for a day and gone when I woke up. Hands have been throbbing on and off last couple days.

I started seeing horizontal lines in vision a while back intermittently. Now I don't see it with eyes open but I do sometimes when I close my eyes and if I tilt my head to left or right the lines follow suit. I saw nuerologist when it first started and he said probably optical migraine.

All that said vitamin is hopefully my answer. Once I saw low results I remembered I had low vitamin d before. Back in 2013 it was 15 and they had me start supplements then they retested a couple months later and it was 57 and I think they told me to stop. I forgot and they never followed up since then so it's very possible I've been deficient for 7 years now.

I've read a lot of studies and things saying vitamin d is great for everything then I read something meant for physicians that basically said there are just as many studies calling the other ones into doubt and more research needs to be done.

[SDBud]

my vit d level was down to 12ng/ml. D3 is not covered by my insurance, but d2 (Ergocalciferol 1.25 MG (50000 UT) Oral Capsule 1 Capsule once a week) is covered so thats what i take. now my level is 48.

What effect did it have on your health? And WHAT caused you to think you needed it? Really would like to know.

[SDBud]

I've read a lot of studies and things saying vitamin d is great for everything then I read something meant for physicians that basically said there are just as many studies calling the other ones into doubt and more research needs to be done.

Same goes for pretty much everything, IN this 'information age', where too much info is as bad, maybe worse, than not enough. You really need to KNOW your sources.


.

[elsueno]

x

[ChicagoGranny]

I think you meant

Looks like you hit Submit before finishing the sentence.

[Janknitz]

What kind of pain? Some of mine seems nuerological and other seems muscle fatigue. Basically my whole body feels like I'm sick all the time. Rest does not help much. If I do nothing and lounge for 4 days straight I get mild relief but other then that it just progressively gets worse and massage helps lessen it. Tylenol used to help too but that doesn't help as much either.

All of my joints ached. The baseline was about a 7 on a scale of 10 for pain, and it got worse at times. My shoulders were particularly painful, joints, tendons, and muscles, a lot of sciatica pain. I lived on Naproxen and did a bad number on my stomach. No diagnosis, the doctor kept telling me normal aging. I couldn't fathom living another 20 years with that kind of pain or it getting worse. I was fatigued to, ordinarily daily activities were hard. Walking across a room was hard.

Have you been worked up for polymyalgia rhuematica? It's not what I had, but my mom did and your symptoms sound similar.

[USMCVet]

What kind of pain? Some of mine seems nuerological and other seems muscle fatigue. Basically my whole body feels like I'm sick all the time. Rest does not help much. If I do nothing and lounge for 4 days straight I get mild relief but other then that it just progressively gets worse and massage helps lessen it. Tylenol used to help too but that doesn't help as much either.

All of my joints ached. The baseline was about a 7 on a scale of 10 for pain, and it got worse at times. My shoulders were particularly painful, joints, tendons, and muscles, a lot of sciatica pain. I lived on Naproxen and did a bad number on my stomach. No diagnosis, the doctor kept telling me normal aging. I couldn't fathom living another 20 years with that kind of pain or it getting worse. I was fatigued to, ordinarily daily activities were hard. Walking across a room was hard.

Have you been worked up for polymyalgia rhuematica? It's not what I had, but my mom did and your symptoms sound similar.

Yours sounds more like me. Walking up stairs can be tiring at times. Between my shoulder blades I get knots in muscles that go deep. I've been making complaints about a lot of these things for a while but now it's getting bad. They always said I am to young so if they say I'm old it's normal I'll be upset lol. Heck VA ER wouldn't do CT for abdominal pain and the intake nurse asked why I didn't just take something for constipation instead of going to ER. Well those exact symptoms were ones I had for all my bouts of diverticulitis which I'm to young for lol. My gastroenterologist said I shouldn't wait so long for treatment with diverticulitis and that I should say some early on. So the next time it happened I told her I thought diverticulitis was coming on. She did x-ray I think and Said everything was fine. Week later I was in hospital for diverticulitis again.

Please vitamin d be the answer lol! I cant imagine what rough shape I would be in without my cpap.

[elsueno]

x

[JLROhio]

Interesting discussion USMCVet - Oorah!!

I recently had my annual with the VA and my Vit D, 25 level was recorded at 18.2 ng/ml.

The Doc sent me a prescription in the mail & has instructed me to take 2000 IU of D3 daily until I see her again in May.

Reading through this thread though...has definitely educated me a bit more on the subject - Thanks!

ChicagoGranny got me thinking...I might want to take an extra pill though!

I can't wait for warmer weather...I'll have an excuse to get more sun!!!

[USMCVet]

Interesting discussion USMCVet - Oorah!!

I recently had my annual with the VA and my Vit D, 25 level was recorded at 18.2 ng/ml.

The Doc sent me a prescription in the mail & has instructed me to take 2000 IU of D3 daily until I see her again in May.

Reading through this thread though...has definitely educated me a bit more on the subject - Thanks!

ChicagoGranny got me thinking...I might want to take an extra pill though!

I can't wait for warmer weather...I'll have an excuse to get more sun!!!

Thank you for your service! Also just remember that vitamin d is fat soluble and it is possible to build up toxic levels of it in your system if you take to much. How much it takes to do that I have no clue.


I'm still kinda surprised that I'm waiting on results for complete blood count and that I got the other results before. It must be a covid thing. So far some has come back from quest diagnostics, and from two other nearby VA centers. I gave the blood last Monday too so it's been over week.

In case this helps someone in future my journey of exhaustion has been interesting.

I started cpap therapy and got it dialed in with the help of this site. I didn't really notice a big improvement so I bought a pulse oximeter and wore it to bed with cpap and noticed I was still becoming hypoxic. Got oxygen added until I had a titration study where they set my machine to a fixed pressure so I changed it to auto again with there pressure as min and my upper pressure was as high as they tested in titration study and I didn't have any CA's.

That still didn't bring big relief. From there I learned my TSH was a bit high so they started me on synthroid. After a month that made a big impact and I almost felt normal again! It was short lived though. I had tried a multivitamin (obviously not enough vitamin d in it) with no difference and I tried exercise but it made it worse. I asked primary point blank for modafinal and he asked if I wanted to sleep clinic and to ask them. So I waited for that appointment and was told my treatment is great. I asked about modafinal and she was caught off guard (I assumed my primary would of given heads up since he told me to asked her) and I told her my primary told me to ask her. She said she would talk to my primary. Nothing happened with that. Then I started seeing horizontal lines and went to eye clinic who found nothing wrong. Happened again so primary sent me to nuerologist and told me to tell him about being tired. I saw him and asked for modafinal. He said he had never written a script for it before (all through VA) but would give it a shot and thought the other providers were scared or didn't know how to do it lol. But it was approved and I finally got it after asking for about 8 months. I tried it and boy what a difference it made! I got more done around house in 1 weekend then I had in months! But that lasted maybe month or two before it stopped being as effective but brain fog is still gone which is good. Now I'm prescribed it twice a day. Going to try it again this weekend but last time I tried to take 2 in a day I felt funky.

So even though my journey isn't over yet the moral of the story is don't give up.

[greatunclebill]

my vit d level was down to 12ng/ml. D3 is not covered by my insurance, but d2 (Ergocalciferol 1.25 MG (50000 UT) Oral Capsule 1 Capsule once a week) is covered so thats what i take. now my level is 48.

What effect did it have on your health? And WHAT caused you to think you needed it? Really would like to know.

I have several medical issues. My dr said i needed vit d. i didn't just decide i needed it. I was diagnosed with osteoporosis and my vit d was low, so the doc put me on vit d and fosomax 70 MG Oral Tablet 1 Tablet once a week, so both medicines are for osteporosis..

[greatunclebill]

my vit d level was down to 12ng/ml. D3 is not covered by my insurance, but d2 (Ergocalciferol 1.25 MG (50000 UT) Oral Capsule 1 Capsule once a week) is covered so thats what i take. now my level is 48.

You can get 600 2000iu capsules of D3 from Costco, if you've got one withing driving distance, they're $9.99 for that,

If you get it mail order, it's a little more.

Thank you for that. I'm a costco and sams shopper and have both of them across town. next time around i will definitely ask my doc how much d3 i'll need to equal the d2 i'm taking. i know d3 is a better product. with insurance the d2 costs $10 for 12 0r 13 pills to cover 3 months.

[sptrout]

Now Dr.Jonny Bowden's newletter:
"Hi everybody,

Don't be fooled. "Dr." Bowden is not an M.D.

I automatically skip over every writing that is presented in bold and underlined. Legitimate MDs don't write like this. Fraudsters sometimes do.

BTW, I take 4000 IU vitamin D3 daily and have encouraged everyone in my family to do the same. It's cheaper than a vitamin D test and presents no risk.

(Sorry for the late response, but for some reason both of my W10 equipped computers just started blocking acess to this site yesterday. They both respond by saying that "cpaptalkcom redirected you too many time". Only for this site and the same response with either Chrome or Edge. Started yesterday and I gave up assuming it was a site issue. Today I tried using my Android Tablet and it works, but is pain to use for longer messaging. Please excuse in advance any typos.)

First, Dr. Bowden Ph.D, CNS, and is Board Certified. His impressive bio can be found at his site jonnybowden.com. Secondly, he could beat the crap out of any M.D. or D.O. when it comes to nutrition. If fact any one on this Board could easily stump a PCP in less than 5 minutes when discussing nurition, I have and fired one for not knowing what magnesium is needed for. Remember, PCPs get near zero nutritional training in medical school, so never think that they know more about nutrition than you do, they very likely will not. Very sad actually.

Secondly, the newsletter that I copied and pasted from was emailed in plain old standard, non-bold text. I added the "bold and underline" to make it clear what was from his email vs. other text that I wrote. I realized when I did a "preview" that bold and onderline was over the top, but when I tried to go back and tone it down that I had trouble making changes without messing up the entire post. I should have just dumped out and restarted, but I did not. Sorry the misunderstanding of Dr. Bowden's original email.

I take 5,000 I.U.s of D3 daily and I am lucky to get even 50 in my blood tests, barely even consider minimal by current true recommendations. Actually, when I add in other vitamins not to mention foods, I am way over 5k of vitnamin D.

IMO, anyone with a chronic health condition really need to maximize your vitamin D level.