Good news!

[kaberett]

I have a significant vitD deficiency! (I'm at ~23 units, versus bottom of the normal range at 80 units). Ergo we're going to Make Supplementation Happen, and this will hopefully result in less fatigue and better-managed depression. 25 tablets a week for the next ten weeks, then retest and hopefully drop down to a more sensible prophylactic dose...

Comments

[naath]

Wow, that's a lot of pills to take! But hopefully will make things somewhat better.

[davidgillon]

Wow! That's quite a deficiency, and quite a number of tablets! Here's hoping it makes a real difference.

[rydra_wong]

Yaaaay! \o/

[rmc28]

Yay, something obvious is wrong!

Good wishes for it being easily fixed.

[rmc28]

Also: I should check if this is one of the things the doctor ordered to be checked in my blood tests this week

[vass]

Oh, good. Best wishes for good absorption and it solving the problem.

[sidheag]

Excellent! That's in nmol/l, I guess? Can I ask how and how much (D3, or?) you're supplementing now, just out of interest? My GP told me to supplement with D3 1000iu/day following a reading of 35 iirc, but wouldn't suggest a follow up test because apparently the lab was too busy for that, sigh, and then I dropped it till I got ill in a way that reminded me, so now I am guessing. I'm currently guessing at "let's take 2000iu for a bit and then go back to 1000iu since I had good health on that for a year" but I would find it reassuring if someone else's qualified doctor is recommending much more, even if that doesn't sound that rational written out!

[kaberett]

I'm at 800iux25 per week for ten weeks for a total of 200000 units over the course of the intensive supplementation! So I'm more-or-less alternating 4xtabs per day with 3xtabs per day.

[silveradept]

Yay that it's something that can be diagnosed. Good health to you.

[sfred]

Glad to hear there is s Thing that can be Done. I hope you start to feel better soon.

[worlds_of_smoke]

Ooooh, fun! What dose are you taking? I had something like 50000 IU of Vit D once a week back when I first got diagnosed. Now I'm on uh... I think 2-3k IU. I take one pill once a day and it keeps things mostly stable.

[kaberett]

25 800iu tablets per week = 20000iu per week i.e. a little less bad than that! Here is hoping...

[swaldman]

HUZZAH!

How closely is VitD actually related to sunlight exposure? Wondering whether I should look into this given our 5 hrs of daylight in winter...

[liv]

It's very, very closely related to sunlight exposure. (It's just about possible to get enough in your diet without sunlight, but only if you eat an indigenous Arctic style diet of almost entirely meat.) However, north of London, and you're a long way north of London, sunlight doesn't give you the right wavelengths from about October to March. SAD lamp and / or chemical supplementation might be good if you're in any way feeling depressed or tired or demotivated during the winter months.

[liv]

Woo, best possible blood test result! You have a deficiency that's easily defined and measured, and entirely treatable, and there are almost no known side-effects to VitD supplementation (there's a fad for taking "mega-doses" of something like 10^5 times the RDA and so far it hasn't hurt anyone). OK, it's yet more pills, but that's about the only downside. Here's hoping that vitamins plus kissing make you feel lots better soonest.

[redbird]

The only person I'm aware of who was injured by mega-doses got a batch that, due to manufacturing error, had 1000 times the dose/tablet that the labels said, so he was taking not just mega- but gigadoses.

A lot of people in the Seattle area are supplementing with vitamin D, on the theory that between the low-angled winter sunlight and the huge number of cloudy days, it's a good idea. You and kaberett and I think most of their commenters are further north than that, and it's not clear how relevant our cloudy season is. I've seen claimed that even when the sun comes out, at 47° N in January it's too low to be useful for vitamin D; if that's true rather than just sounding plausible, it would apply to winter in Britain as well.

[redbird]

Yay for identifiable and treatable causes!

I'm guessing it's also a good sign that you're at levels where it's about 4 regular tablets a day for a few weeks, rather than needing special prescription high-dose tablets. Or that might be another US-UK difference.

[kaberett]

This is prescription doses (25 800iu tabs a week for ten weeks), but -- yes.

[rysmiel]

Yay potential straightforward fix, and I really hope it works. *hug*

[jenett]

I really really really feel it when my Vitamin D is lousy.

(I take two 50,000 IU tablets a week, and have for more than 3 years. During the summer, I don't need it but it won't drive me up into a dangerous level, but I apparently don't store it at all well, and I live at a latitude where you can't make Vitamin D from sunshine between about September and May anyway. This is a high dose, but it keeps me in the mid range of the suggested level reliably, even if I do have to argue with my pharmacist about it and every new doctor wants to test.)

Has a massive improvement on general achiness for me, exhaustion, and - this is a weird one that doesn't turn up in symptom lists - my eyesight. (I spent *years* with my eyes getting worse from about February to May, and then improving again. Since we have me on a steady dose of Vitamin D, that doesn't happen.)

[me_and]

I'm now vaguely wondering if I should get my bloods checked for similar things.

[kaberett]

Here's the full list of stuff we checked me for. Obviously I can explain the reasoning for each if you want :-)

[redsixwing]

Yay for definable and easy-to-fix things being found. <3

[laceblade]

I've also just started taking Vitamin D supplements. Every time I mention it, people say, "EVERYONE in Wisconsin should take it." I suppose London is probably similar.

/vitamin D high-five/

[kaberett]

Given that London is at (most at) 47degN versus London's 51degN, yeah :-)

[fyreharper]

Straightforward-and-fixable thing wrong with your bloods YAY! \o/

[white_hart]

Yay for easily fixable thing, and also yay for doctor who could actually be bothered to test for it (the doc I saw last winter when I had been suicidal for a fortnight said there was no point testing, because everyone in the UK was vit D deficient in the winter, so I might as well just take supplements anyway. So now, of course, I have absolutely no data to tell me how deficient I was, whether the supplements actually helped and if it's worth taking them again this winter...).

[kaberett]

Ha. Yes. I have this GP very well trained that if I rock up and go "something is wrong, I suspect thing X" he should take it seriously and do the tests.

If you have the cope in your place I'd set up an appt now to get some baseline bloods done? <3

[quartzpebble]

Heyyyyy, something with an obvious solution to try! Sweet.

The comments remind me that I should take my own VitD more consistently... never been tested, but my mom was deficient in SoCal and I live in Seattle and don't like exposing skin to cold air.

[calissa]

Well, that's somewhat of a relief. I hope the supplementation gets things back to normal.

I wish there was a way I could parcel up some of our sunshine and send it over. Summer is going to be fierce this year.

[shewhostaples]

Hurrah! Wishing you well for the next steps.

[wordweaverlynn]

Decent Vitamin D levels really do make a huge difference.

[hairyears]

Crikey, that level of deficiency is well into 'problems with your bones' territory.

[kaberett]

Ayup. In fact we checked my bone profile and it's fine, but we'll be rechecking come January when we look at everything else. (Which at least suggests that the vitD deficiency is a relatively short-term issue...?)