Vitamin D Critical To Health

Forums: Health, Vitamins, Vitamin D, Vitamin D Deficiency, Tanning
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It seems all I do is rant these days. Perhaps I have found out why. Everything seems to be an imperative to me. Well most of my angst is because I live everyday with quite severe pain. I have had a litany of about 12 doctors look at me and up to this point not one of them has been able to help me. They all take my blood and when I come back to their office they have had the chart right in front of them and yet nothing seems remarkable.

Well don't trust them. I don think most of them even know how to read the cryptic numbers spewed out by the lab computers. What is even more troubling is that they probably don't even know the right tests to order.

I seriously think I am dying. My pain levels have been so bad and slowly my body has gone from nearly perfect health to everything from anger fits, skin rashes, to ear infections, toothaches and my spine hurts like old bloody hell.

I have been to physical therapy twice which meant three times a week for a couple months, stretching and laying on heating pads. Only to walk out of the office and an hour later it is even worse. Nothing helps, not walking, stretching, heat, sitting, laying down, running, lifting weights, and medications only get stronger by the day. I sleep all night and wake up even more sore. They have ruled out arthritis.

My current doctor is an osteopathic doctor. He immediately asked for another blood test. I thought oh god not again. But I obliged. I missed getting to the hospital because lately I have not even been able to focus on doing anything. When I showed up at his office he had the in-house lab draw my blood. When I arrived at his office the first thing that surprised me was he had my blood test in his hands. As opposed to my other doctors who didn't even recall sending me to the lab.

He told me I had a critical vitamin D deficiency. He said my vitamin D level for someone my age should be at about 60% and mine was at 20%. I was not certain what all of this meant but what could I do but agree at that point. He told me to get two vitamin supplements at the pharmacy. One was vitamin D3 which I had never quite heard of before and the other was magnesium citrate. I had never heard of that either.

Apparently I don't get enough sun stuck her behind this computer day after day ranting on the various forums and making computer music/art etc... In other words I live in the dark like a mushroom. While mushrooms thrive in the dark I have been sure I have been slowly dying.

Every once in while a doctor comes and saves your life when all the others just want to schedule another appointment.

The first few days after taking the vitamin D3 I noticed my hyper tension seemed to calm a bit. Then I had an ear infection and a huge lump the size of an aspirin appeared in the roof of my mouth. I also had a boil appear on my back.

This pain is chronic I have had this back pain all of my life. I have had many doctors draw my blood and not one of them told me my vitamin D levels were low. My doctor also told me to go to my gym and tan at least once a week. It has seemed like nothing has been improving.

Yesterday i went to the gym a second time to tan. I figured I would tan before I worked out so the tan could metabolize in my body while I did my cardio thing. Apparently the sun is one of the only natural source of vitamin D3. The tanning lights also act as a supplier of vitamin D3. I have had a rash lately but it is the same rash I get each time this year when winter sets in. I have always attributed it to dry air and winter setting in here in Maine.

After I stepped out of the tanning booth and looked at my legs it seemed even worse but I just did my work out anyway and ignored it. The next day I got up and I was very surprised. Firstly I did not have to get out of bed early because my back hurt to much to sleep any longer. Also I looked down at my legs and the rash was completely gone. I went out walking with my friend and it is one of the first times I only griped at him a couple of times. It was like my head was suddenly clear again.

Last week I had the ear infection which was gone now and the cracking in my jaw I was worried was a wisdom tooth needing to be pulled that was gone also. The ear infection and lump in the roof of my mouth I attributed to the rush of vitamin D3 and probably calcium entering the bones in my ears after so long being starved of vital nutrients.

Apparently Vitamin D3 is what carries many other vitamins into the cells too.

I asked my doctor it is was possible my D3 levels could remain at 20% and he said it was possible. I then asked him if it was probable and he said no it was not probable but still possible. This man has saved my life. Never rely on your doctors if you have persistent seeming incurable pain, some doctors are only there for lip service and don't do their work. They have so many patients the could care less they just want to prescribe pain meds and be done with it. They send you to specialists (at your own request) rather than checking simple test results themselves.

This makes me quite angry I almost died and I am still not out of the woods. Today is the first day I have not cried, even through my pain meds, in over a year. I am hoping that today I am not just out of pain because a storm is approaching because sometimes that is the case. We do have a storm heading our way here in Maine at this time also. The rash is gone and i feel more energetic. Considering My doctor has actually found a culprit that is logically what has been causing my pain is VERY hopeful and the vitamins seems to be already helping tremendously.

My doctor was about to crack my neck as he manipulates my bones to try and relieve my pain too. Suddenly I felt a pause in his treatment he had my head in both of his hands. he held my head in his hands for a long moment perfectly still, I sensed he may have been praying for me. Then after quite a while my head went snap and I felt it all the way up into my brain.

If your doctor is not like this I suggest you look around till you find one who is actually a doctor an not just one happy with keeping you sick and over medicated.

Google Vitamin D3 and I suggest many of you get on it before your health falls apart as mine has been rapidly doing.

They don't call vitamin D the sunshine vitamin for nothing. Smile

I am not really sure why he prescribed the Magnesium Citrate if anyone know why please reply.

I will let you know how things turn out...

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Vitamin D.. My mom's a nurse and every time we talk, she asks me if I'm taking D. Apparently most northerners, I would consider Maine north... are severely deficient. With out it, the body can't absorb calcium. My nephew had seizures when he was one year old. He was breast fed and his mother didn't realize she should be giving him vitamins. He was was put on a heavy rotation of Vitamin D and Calcium. He's as healthy as ever now.
The Canadian Medical Association thinks Vitamin D will help preventing many cancers, Alzheimers, bowel problems, osteoporosis, rickets and ease pain amoung others.
It seems every week they add another symptom or disease to the list that can be cured, prevented or helped. I think they are referring to it as the miracle drug.
On the other hand... Tanning Bed are not a good idea. According to studies, just one exposure can lead to cancer. They are not a healthy alternative. I wouldn't be surprised to see them all closed in a few years. There is mounting evidence to the dangers.
I wish you well. Pain is a terrible beast to live with.

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@RexRed,

HAve they ruled out Lymes Disease. The med school at Yale does lots of funky reserach on the symptomology of Lymes and Ive been told that the disease can be confused with everything from cancer to diabetes and heart troubles.

MAine aint exactly the center of the medical world. Ive had to use docs at the CAlais hospital and was not overly imopressed at what I knew from just osmosis from my docs at LAnkanau and Penn

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I was feeling run down once when I lived in Boston and I was also deficient in Vitamin D. A few supplements and I was good as new. Now that I'm in sunny CA it's not a problem at all.

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@RexRed,

Sounds like you're having a very rough time of it, Rex.
I hope the vitamin D helps.
Good luck!

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Rex, I would suggest you also go to a nutritionist or dietitian

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@chai2,

This doctor has been helping me with nutrition also. But thanks for the tip I may end up going that route and it did not really occur to me. I just can't believe how lucky I am to have found him at this critical stage of my illnesses. I have cut out all bleached flour including bleached pasta, anything with bread crumbs, most kinds of white rice, and processed sugar. (I have never had much of a sweet tooth so cutting out sugar is not a problem) I used to not be able to stand the taste of whole grains except for oat but I will do anything if it helps and stick to it. Also some caloric intake restriction seems to be helping too. I was getting fat with my body not absorbing anything. I can feel the nutrients are now actually reaching my bones and other organs what a strange feeling indeed.

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Thanks everyone for the comments, concerns and care. It means allot to me that people are here when I have had special needs. I hope you all get your own vitamin D levels checked soon (don't put it off) and get a doctor that know how to read them properly. Read Google about brittle bones too. It is unbelievable how critical that vitamin is for nearly every organ in the body.

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Does anyone know if barley (like you find in beef barley soup) is bleached like flour or is barley stripped of its nutrients?

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@RexRed,

Pearl barley doesn't appear to be. You should see if you can get quinoa, it's a grain as well but it's very high in protein and other good stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa

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@Ceili,

Amazon sells quinoa if you can't find it locally. Feel better soon, Rex.

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I am going out to my gym and after to Whole Grocer for some quinoa. I am going to get it pre washed. I actually like foods like very brown rice so I think I will really like quinoa. Last night I slept restlessly for the first half of the night then my back relaxed and this morning is much like yesterday my pain levels have dropped significantly.

I found out the storm my friend referred to was in Florida so that can't have been causing the respite in my pain. Even though it has been 50 degrees the last two days, pretty warm for November in Maine. I worry that the birds will not fly south if it stays too warm. The grass is still green also. I saw someone mowing their lawn two days ago.

I can only try to express to you how horrible this ordeal has been. My body was just passing food right though and nothing was going in. I even had halitosis which is gone now. My teeth were suffering bad, in the last year I have lost four fillings. They just fell out. Thank heavens the teeth they fell out of had root canals or I would be in much more serious trouble. Already I have started to lose some weight. I don feel bloated every time I eat and my cellulite is disappearing. My digestive system seems to be working again. Layers of dead skin was piling up on my feet faster than I could scrape it off. That has started to reverse and my fingernails and toenails were suffering too. It starts out so gradual that it seems just like subtle aging then it just gets really bad all of a sudden. I am hoping this is behind me now.

I know i will have back pain but hopefully never like it was.

Thanks again peeps for your considerate comments and helpful suggestions.

I have a new lease on life. Smile

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Rex - sounds tough, but I am glad your outlook is so much more rosy now!

I just visited with my dermatologist and he gave me the VitD lecture. Not that my skin is bad, but because in general, even people in MA aren't getting enough sunlight to make VitD for most months of the year. He also said that the recommended requirements are too low for us Northerners. I had been taking them daily and have stopped. Thanks for the reminder.

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@RexRed,

Re the quinoa, it's good you have a Whole Foods nearby to be able to buy it in the bulk section.

IMO, don't bother to get it prewashed.
It's a snap to just put some in a mixing bowl with some water, rub it through your hands for a minute, then drain through a fine sieve.

I like doing that, because it gets me more in touch with what I'm eating, rather than just mindlessly consuming something from a box.

The quinoa comes in tan and red. I've found the red to be less expensive, and is the same nutritionally, so I get that. You could get both and mix them together. That would be attractive on the plate.

I love quinoa for breakfast. I cook it in soy milk, adding honey, spices, peanut butter, banana and raisens, and whatever else I think of at the moment.

Changing subjects....

You expressed concern that you were turning to fat since your body was not absorbing nutrients properly. That might very well be. I'm a 100% believer that you body needs to integrate changes to it by addressing more than what seems to be the immediate problem.

If lack of vitamin D was the problem, that effected something else in your body, which effected something else, which got something else out of whack, which in turn made something else function improperly.

I recently started going to an acupuncturist, and it has made some truly positive changes in more ways than the initial reason I went there. The acupunture is "unblocking" channels and now I'm starting to function more properly.

BTW, there's a school of acupunture near where I work, and if you are willing to let someone practicing their internship work with you, the cost is very low, like $30 a session. Last week when I went, I was the subject of someone's final exam before getting their license, and she was really good.

Rex, if you body is all messed up at this time, you may need to go through a rebirthing process (again, just my words), starting out anew.

I found there's a whole world out there full of things to facilitate this. Starting with a few years back, I went through a series of rolfing, which changed my body, and because of that, changed who I was. Yoga has been a wonderful vehicle of self change. Now, I'm discovering through acupuncture yet another level.

You can become the person you want to be, and the journey is so satisfying you don't even worry about getting to the goals.

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@chai2,

I bought the pre-washed quinoa I missed your post till I got back. I like it. I just boiled a 1/4 cup of it in twice the water and added nothing to it just to learn of it actual flavor. I know I will be using it allot in my diet. I liked the crunchy texture and the flavor was palatable I am sure more so with a variety of things added. I was worried about possibly not washing it right the first time but the next time I will buy it unwashed. The box (ancient harvest brand) had two very nice recipes on it. I will type them up and post them here if anyone is interested. One recipe for rice pilaf and the other for baked stuffed peppers.

I prefer to boil my stuffed peppers in tomato sauce rather than bake them. I used to just mix raw ground beef, uncooked white rice, raw onions, an egg or two, salt, pepper. Stuff the mixture in the peppers (or lightly steamed cabbage leaves) and put them in enough tomato sauce till they were completely submerged and slow cook them till the rice was done. I think brown rice will require me to precook it first a good amount. I may not mind the taste of the brown rice as much but the whole wheat pasta is still hard for me to consume.

As for my current health crisis I am actually lucky because I was quite fit before this latest bout set in so this ordeal has not totally wrecked my health noticeably. A few weeks more and it may have shut off my kidneys or worse. It seemed to be at the beginning stages of doing so though on all fronts rapidly. My back being my weakest link has been my barometer screaming in much pain. It was not the spine but the muscles were all pulling at the wrong tensions and the joints were very sore from the vitamin deficiency but luckily no damage was done to the spinal bones.

Even my eyesight has faltered and I have not been able to listen to my mp3 player much lately either. I am still physically rather enviously in good shape. I gained some weight around my mid section that just seems to lay over an otherwise strong core. The vitamin D deficiency zapped me of energy so in the last three months I have gone to the gym about three times. My head still feels a bit foggy. Perhaps if I were not physically in excellent shape this ordeal could have been much worse.

I grew up on bleached flour breads and especially pasta and I am worried I will not be able to stand wheat pasta. I also noticed a whole grain (i think it was) pasta too. Spaghetti O's are now out and most add water and boil packets are out too. Canned pea soup, barley soup, vegetable beef, seem ok for now that is.

hydrogenated oils

http://www.naturalnews.com/024694_food_hydrogenated_oils_health.html

I have a whole tub of that in the fridge. I don't like butter either. I grew up on margarine and I really don't have a taste for butter. Just as whole milk is too heavy for my taste I like 2% or 1 1/2% milk. Once I get the pasta packets used up and the canned soups containing bleached pasta and rice in them gone from my cupboards they will not be coming back. I don't have the income to just throw or give them away. My parents taught me not to ever waste food. I will not be using the dried pasta I have left there is so little of it in storage and pasta is not that expensive if it should got to waste..

I will think over the acupuncture suggestion and as for rolfing I have considered that was probably my next course of treatment had my osteopathic doctor not discovered my severe vitamin deficiency. Finding this vitamin deficiency has made me wonder if rolfing may have potentially caused me to injure already compromised bones.

Well change is on the horizon for me. Today I had the energy to run off 200 calories and two days ago I had the energy to run off 100 calories. I am feeling better although my back still hurts quite a bit but not nearly as much. Even my pain meds seem more effective.

I have been drinking milk lately (for the vitamin D) and been hearing bad stuff about that. Does anyone know the rundown on milk?

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The most common food allergies are wheat, fish, nuts, pork, legumes, eggs and milk. Not all of these will cause anaphylaxis, but many people will have varying degrees of intolerance.
There is an excellent book called Disease in Disguise that explains the whole process and why intolerance can and will cause swelling and other symptoms and how they affect the body. You might be able to find it in a library. I gave my copy away.
http://www.amazon.ca/Allergies-Disease-Disguise-Carolee-Bateson-Koch/dp/155312040X

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@RexRed,

People have different reactions and opinions about pasta. I always use durum semolina pasta from italy - I've read it is better re glycemic index but no link. That's unless I make my own fresh and I don't do that often anymore. I keep threatening to make buckwheat pasta (pinocchieri or some word like that. I've got a thread on it at a2k somewhere) but I still haven't done it. Have added buckwheat to my homemade bread and like it.

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@ossobuco,

Isn't pasta made with bleached flour? Hmm that gives me pause the allergy thing because perhaps my allergies were caused again by a lack of vitamin D instead of an actual allergy to any certain thing. My allergist tried everything and couldn't pinpoint it.

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@RexRed,

I think american pasta is. It's a different animal, as it were, from the hard (durum) semolina pastas of italy. Some ital brands have factories here - I'm more interested in the imported ones.

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@ossobuco,

Here's that buckwheat pasta recipe that I mean to make -

and I spelled Pizzoccheri wrong..

http://able2know.org/topic/127306-1#post-3518370

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