Low Vit D

Good morning

Has anyone had issues with low Vit D? Right now I am having a really bad time with muscle pain, tingling and bathroom issues. After having a 100 tests, 2 ER visits and a 10 hour stay in the hospital, everything is normal which I am happy about.

Then, I was surfing the web and read something about Vit D and the symptoms associated with it. Low and behold, I have almost all the symptoms listed.

I was taking Vit D in the past and stopped it.

Robin

Over half of all Americans have low vitamin D. And the symptoms you describe could be low B12, iron, or 100 other things.

Do you take any supplements?

You had surgery 14 years ago? You could be critically low in a lot of things. When did you last have bloodwork done? If it wasn't recently, do it now. ALL vitamins and minerals. That's about 15 vials of blood. Do it now.

Thanks...

I took supplements for years and stopped last month! Restarted today!

Erk - have you not had blood work?! This is a pretty standard thing to check for! You should get to your PCP and have complete blood work done ASAP.

Vitamin D deficiency is normal. For me, I was very low (single digits) pre-op. I took 5000 IU a day and got it up to the top of the range. Then I stopped and it dropped down to the middle of the range in a year. So now I'm taking 2000 IU a day (since that's what I had in the house) and we'll see where my D is at next time I have labs.

Yes, I have had lab work, I work in a lab and I check my labs all the time. But....like a fool, I stopped taking my Vit D because I take so many other drugs.

Going to doctor today and will recheck my levels. There is a once a week 50,000 VIT D pill and I am foing to try it. I was on 5000 and it did nothing.

Thanks...

If you have RNY or DS, make sure you are taking dry D3. Prescription D2 is in a gel form, which is malabsorbed by RNY and DS patients (however docs keep prescribing it). You can get 50,000 iu of dry D3 without a prescription via Amazon, or even ask for it at the Walmart pharmacy (they keep it behind the counter, but again - no prescription required).

Thanks...

My father's family has auto-immune issues like crazy, and one of the specialists who was consulted said there's a very strong correlation between low vitamin D and auto-immune, so he advised everyone in our family to take no less than 2,000 IU daily. I've been doing that for years, and was still low before surgery. I take 5,000 IU now, and am still only at the low end of normal. My doc says I need to get more time in the sun as well, that it's one of the main reasons Americans are so low, but I burn so fast that it's insane. Without SPF (which apparently negates the Vitamin D benefit) I get sunburned with only 15-20 minutes of full sun. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. :/

There was a study a few years ago that showed that sunscreen may not prevent you from producing Vitamin D. They only used SPF 15, but there was an interesting learning in there about how people don't know how to apply sunscreen correctly. If you're interested, here is an article about that study.

Regardless, I would obviously NOT skip sunscreen to get Vitamin D. I'd rather take a Vit D supplement and prevent skin cancer!

Strangely, my Vitamin D levels have been fine, both pre-op and post-op. It's funny because two different doctors have actually been surprised by that. Apparently, it's become almost rare to have normal Vit D levels without supplementation. Could also be that I live in Michigan where few of us spend much time outside for 6 months of the year, and the other 6 months aren't always the sunniest!!

Good information, thanks! I am INCREDIBLY fair skinned, and actually do put on what seems to most people to be enormous amounts of sunscreen when I am going to be outside. And reapply frequently. I've learned the hard way through several incredibly bad blistering sunburns in my youth with accompanying what I call "sun sickness" for days afterwards. (In retrospect it was probably severe dehydration and fighting infection.) I've OD'd on aspirin trying to battle sunburn effects and tolerate business clothing in the past (ringing in the ears is the early signs you're taking WAAAAYYYY too much aspirin...)

So I'm a bit fanatical about the SPF. :) And at some point need to employ a dermatologist, as I'm supposedly in the super-high risk category for melanoma because of the number of bad sunburns as a teen. :/

With the autoimmune and being on a sulfa drug for it (but now off of it for over a month) I've basically been treating the sun like it was poison for a couple of years, but knowing I can still get some Vit D with the SPF in place, I might venture out a bit and see if it helps.