Vitamin D deficiency

[Inca]

My last blood test uncovered a vitamin D deficiency. (I haven't got the actual numerical results, but I'll ask that on my next visit.) Then I got send to the pharmacy and got a once only administration of a supplement.
I haven't been able to come up with a good, reliable source about vitamin D deficiency treatment (they all say 'talk to your health care professional' and while sound advice but I'd like to have some additional resources.)

Since the deficiency is hardly recognised here (the usual take is that a non-elderly white person that is eating healthy and getting out in the sun for half an hour a day gets enough: I already disproved that myth ...), there is no standard information on it.

Anyway: what is the preferred treatment / usual schedule for this? How long would it take before noticing improvement?

[Micheál]

My last blood test uncovered a vitamin D deficiency. (I haven't got the actual numerical results, but I'll ask that on my next visit.) Then I got send to the pharmacy and got a once only administration of a supplement.
I haven't been able to come up with a good, reliable source about vitamin D deficiency treatment (they all say 'talk to your health care professional' and while sound advice but I'd like to have some additional resources.)

Since the deficiency is hardly recognised here (the usual take is that a non-elderly white person that is eating healthy and getting out in the sun for half an hour a day gets enough: I already disproved that myth ...), there is no standard information on it.

Anyway: what is the preferred treatment / usual schedule for this? How long would it take before noticing improvement?

I would would definitely follow up on this Inca. Vitamin D is pretty much your immune system, so being deficient could affect you in many ways.

You can try starting with Vitamin D tablets, and spending adequate time in the sunlight, at least 2 hours a day with your face&arms exposed. Dr. Mercola usually has very good information regarding these subjects. This is just random, but much more can be recovered poking around there...
http://vitamind.mercola.com/

[FierFlye]

My last blood test uncovered a vitamin D deficiency.

Anyway: what is the preferred treatment / usual schedule for this? How long would it take before noticing improvement?

I had a Vitamin D deficiency last fall. My schedule was work from 9 to 5 and then go home and sleep. Eventually the exhaustion got so bad I began missing work. I stopped making plans with people because I wasn't sure I'd have the energy to actually go through with them. When I had trouble walking up a flight of stairs I finally made a doctor's appointment. My Vitamin D level was a 13.

My doctor put me on prescription strength Vitamin D. 50,000 units three times a week. (No, that's not a typo. Fifty thousand.) I took those for 2 or 3 months. I think I started noticing a difference after a week. You can buy off the shelf strength Vitamin D also. I think it comes in 1000 or 2000 units.

[Jenett]

Anyway: what is the preferred treatment / usual schedule for this? How long would it take before noticing improvement?

It depends a lot on your initial level, and how you respond to treatment. To give you some idea of what this might look like for one person, I was diagnosed about 18 months ago: my levels were around 15. I was put on two doses a week of 50,000 IU (prescription dose, as already mentioned), and I'm holding steady somewhere in the upper 40s now.

('Normal range' is considered 30-80 or so, and it's important to not get over the top of that by too much, because too much Vitamin D for long has bad effects on the body, too.)

I'm currently on an 'every 6 months' testing cycle (so, just had one), which is fine by my current doctor (since I'm moving, we might do something different.)

Some people need the prescription dose for a short period of time, and can then go off it and take over the counter doses (usually 1000 to 3000 IU a day). Other people (and that currently includes me) need to stay on larger dose supplementation.

For me, being out in the sun more (which I was trying pretty actively last summer) doesn't help much: my guess is that either I'm not making it very efficiently, or I'm not storing it effectively. Based on some other things I've noticed, I think it may be the latter: it's something I plan to look into in more depth when I'm settled in with a new doctor.

In terms of symptoms: I was diagnosed with the deficiency at the same time I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and they have a lot of overlapping symptoms (exhaustion, in particular). For me, the exhaustion of the Vitamin D deficiency is about stamina - I couldn't maintain any level of exertion for very long.

Some of the other symptoms were very common ones - I was generally low-grade achey a lot of the time, and didn't really pay attention to it, because it'd been like that for a long time. But when I started the prescription, that went away pretty fast (a couple of weeks?) That also means I sleep better, because it used to be the case that I'd need to wake up and roll over because one shoulder was aching badly pretty often.

I also noticed something that's not in the literature I've found, but that does seem to be a pretty clear link: I used to go through a period from February to May (in other words, the time when Vitamin D is particularly low) when my eyesight would get more and more tiring (lots more eyestrain headaches.) I'd get or wear glasses, and it'd be okay, and then I'd go on into the summer months, and I wouldn't need them anymore.

Since I've been taking my prescription doses, that's an all the time thing. I suspect my actual eyesight prescription hasn't changed hugely (I'm very lightly nearsighted and have a slight astigmatism in both eyes) but I don't get the eyestrain.

[Inca]

My doctor put me on prescription strength Vitamin D. 50,000 units three times a week. (No, that's not a typo. Fifty thousand.) I took those for 2 or 3 months. I think I started noticing a difference after a week. You can buy off the shelf strength Vitamin D also. I think it comes in 1000 or 2000 units.

I got a one time only dose of 50.000. But reading both your reply and the one from Jenett it seems to be a bit on the conservative side to me now.
(Because I have been getting lots of sunlight since april (the weather has been briljant and I've specifically been trying to catch most of it) and a daily supplement (which in retrospect is just 200 IU but still). That didn't battle the deficiency so that seems bigger guns are needed.)

I will look into otc-meds but don't want to meddle with it too much yet being in the 'process' with a doctor.

Thanks for your replies all, really helping me!

[Arcadia]

I had a Vitamin D deficiency last fall. My schedule was work from 9 to 5 and then go home and sleep. Eventually the exhaustion got so bad I began missing work. I stopped making plans with people because I wasn't sure I'd have the energy to actually go through with them. When I had trouble walking up a flight of stairs I finally made a doctor's appointment. My Vitamin D level was a 13.

Originally Posted by Jenett
Re: Vitamin D deficiency
In terms of symptoms: I was diagnosed with the deficiency at the same time I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and they have a lot of overlapping symptoms (exhaustion, in particular). For me, the exhaustion of the Vitamin D deficiency is about stamina - I couldn't maintain any level of exertion for very long.

Some of the other symptoms were very common ones - I was generally low-grade achey a lot of the time, and didn't really pay attention to it, because it'd been like that for a long time. But when I started the prescription, that went away pretty fast (a couple of weeks?) That also means I sleep better, because it used to be the case that I'd need to wake up and roll over because one shoulder was aching badly pretty often.

So, it is common then for fatigue to be a symptom? I have had a really bad problems with fatigue for well over a decade. I just don't have energy. I just want to sleep all the time and can too, for hours and hours. I had always thought it was part of my depression, so did my doctors, but I have not got depression anymore (long complicated story), I am off the meds and feeling normal emotionally for the first time in my adult life.

So the drs did a series of blood tests to see if I had thyroid problems or something that might be triggering the fatigue and the only thing there was, was a defincincy in Vitamin D. Not a huge one, but it was there. They didn't explain to me what it meant, just that I hadn't been out in the sun enough. No explaination of symtoms, reasons etc. They just told me to buy some over the counter Vit D and that was that.

Except I haven't really being taking it regularly. Naughty I know

Then I came across this thread and saw the part about fatigue and it made me think. Could that be why I'm so tired all the time? So yeah, I'm interested in how it's treated too as well as the symptoms. I will be asking my dr for more info after reading this and taking it more seriously. But it helps to read about others' experience too.

[Wood Rose]

My last blood test uncovered a vitamin D deficiency. (I haven't got the actual numerical results, but I'll ask that on my next visit.) Then I got send to the pharmacy and got a once only administration of a supplement.
I haven't been able to come up with a good, reliable source about vitamin D deficiency treatment (they all say 'talk to your health care professional' and while sound advice but I'd like to have some additional resources.)

Since the deficiency is hardly recognised here (the usual take is that a non-elderly white person that is eating healthy and getting out in the sun for half an hour a day gets enough: I already disproved that myth ...), there is no standard information on it.

Anyway: what is the preferred treatment / usual schedule for this? How long would it take before noticing improvement?

My last vitamin D test showed I was at 6. I work 12 hour nights, am allergic to the sun (I break out in a rash after 15 min exposure) and live in a cave. I just take an over the counter multi-vitamin and that seems to work for me.

[Jenett]

So the drs did a series of blood tests to see if I had thyroid problems or something that might be triggering the fatigue and the only thing there was, was a defincincy in Vitamin D. Not a huge one, but it was there. They didn't explain to me what it meant, just that I hadn't been out in the sun enough. No explaination of symtoms, reasons etc. They just told me to buy some over the counter Vit D and that was that.

Except I haven't really being taking it regularly. Naughty I know

Fatigue is definitely a possible symptom - especially if it includes muscle weakness on exertion. The more even typical symptom is non-specific achiness (not in the joints, not in the muscles, just sort of everywhere.)

WebMD has some additional information about why people might end up deficient at http://www.webmd.com/diet/vitamin-d-deficiency

In terms of treatment - some people respond to over the counter dosages. Some people (me!) need prescription level doses. (As I think I said up thread, I take 50,000 IU twice a week, which would be 25-50 over the counter pills. They're prescription, because of the concern about bad side effects if your levels get too high (your bones soften, which is, um, not good.) so I also have to have blood work done every 6 months or so to make sure nothing major's changed.)

[Arcadia]

Fatigue is definitely a possible symptom - especially if it includes muscle weakness on exertion. The more even typical symptom is non-specific achiness (not in the joints, not in the muscles, just sort of everywhere.)

WebMD has some additional information about why people might end up deficient at http://www.webmd.com/diet/vitamin-d-deficiency

In terms of treatment - some people respond to over the counter dosages. Some people (me!) need prescription level doses. (As I think I said up thread, I take 50,000 IU twice a week, which would be 25-50 over the counter pills. They're prescription, because of the concern about bad side effects if your levels get too high (your bones soften, which is, um, not good.) so I also have to have blood work done every 6 months or so to make sure nothing major's changed.)

Thank you for your reply and the link

[Ocelot]

My last blood test uncovered a vitamin D deficiency. (I haven't got the actual numerical results, but I'll ask that on my next visit.) Then I got send to the pharmacy and got a once only administration of a supplement.
I haven't been able to come up with a good, reliable source about vitamin D deficiency treatment (they all say 'talk to your health care professional' and while sound advice but I'd like to have some additional resources.)

Since the deficiency is hardly recognised here (the usual take is that a non-elderly white person that is eating healthy and getting out in the sun for half an hour a day gets enough: I already disproved that myth ...), there is no standard information on it.

Anyway: what is the preferred treatment / usual schedule for this? How long would it take before noticing improvement?

I'm on a prescription for vitamin D - 50,000 IU once per week. My blood test continually show low and since I have pretty bad osteoporosis, That's why I'm on the prescription.

The doctor doesn't really know why mine is low, other blood levels are fine, no tyroid problems, etc, and I get a lot of sun with the tan to prove it.

I have noticed an increase in energy after taking it. Especially when I've run out and skipped a week. After getting and taking it again, my energy is noticeably better.