Vitamin D deficient -- help?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

Well, I just had some bloodwork for Vitamin D done for the first time and found my levels of D are in the toilet. This is what the values look like:

Component Your Value Standard Range
VITAMIN D, 25-HYDROXY 11 30-100 ng/mL

I have been having problems with massive fatigue/muscle weakness that I have attributed to my ongoing issues with low ferritin.

I am a 20+ year vegetarian who eats cheese but no regular milk, and very few eggs (only in baked goods). The kicker is I have worked as a landscape designer the past few years and spent a good amount of time in the sunlight!

Has anyone here had experience with such a deficiency and how have you gone about treating it? Right now I am tracking down a vegetarian D suppliment but am unsure how much to take daily - I have read everything from 1000 to 4000 units daily. It looks like fortifed cereal/OJ may be the few food options I am looking at.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Hell

[CountAllVotes]

1. same reading

I also tested at 11 on the Vitamin D. My doctor wrote me out an RX for vitamin D caps. I was taking 100,000 IU a week (split dosages). I just got tested again after doing this for 3 mos. Now I am at 33.2. I am to continue taking vitamin D caps at 50,000 IU a week for at least the next couple of months. I have to get another blood test. (ugh).

It seems this deficiency if very common.

FYI:

Less than 10 = deficient
between 11-32 = insufficient
32-75 = sufficient
over 75 = toxic

Be careful with this and don't try taking 50 or 100 of the vitamin D they sell in the stores. I was taking approx. 1,500 IU of it before the test and it seems my body is not metabolizing vitamin D properly. Where did it go I asked. Answer: down the toilet is where.

I am not vegan but I am inclined to being vegetarian. I don't like eggs and rarely eat them. It is my understanding that Shitake mushrooms are very high in vitamin D. Rice Dream is also fortified with vitamin D FYI.

As for aches and pains - mine are just a bit less but far from being gone. Humph.

Not sure what to make of this whole thing with vitamin D. Seems that EVERYONE is deficient these days, esp. if you live somewhere where there is not a lot of sunshine.

Best of luck to you with this problem.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. Sorry it took so long to get back --

My donor star went kapooey and I just now got access to these forums again.

My doc gave me the same treatment of 50k units a week for three months. I go back in another 5 weeks for testing.

The weird thing about the deficiency is that I work out in the sun all the time! I do landscaping and am out for hours without sunscreen on my arms. Go figure.

The other thing I am finding interesting is I am losing weight -- I am dropping around pound a week! I was around 10 pounds over my normal weight and for years I have been unable to make it budge -- no matter what I did or didn't eat, that 10 pounds just stayed on me. That has been one unexpected but happy side effect. I haven't been feeling much else -- but I do notice I don't have the generalized soreness I had been dealing with and attributing to getting older.

[CountAllVotes]

2. another call just now

I'm supposed to take it for another three months and then get another test. The goal was to reach 40 I was told. How long this takes I have no idea.

Seems the #'s I wrote above aren't quite right but I know I turned out deficient, hence the process I am now going through (maybe it was 9 rather than 11?).

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. The tricky thing is going to be staying ---

at that good level -- I really don't know how I am going to do that because I am nto sure how/why I got there in the first place. If the suppliments just go down the toilet, what then?

On Kaiser's test range 11 came out as being "significantly" deficient -- I don't thnk you would be getting the big Ds if you were only kind of deficient.

[GardeningGal]

3. A useful link on vitamin D

I'm trying to find the correct amount also. I had read all the information about vitamin D last Dec. so in January I started taking 1000 per day. Then I had my physical and blood work done in early July and was still only at 26 ng/ml so the doctor said to take 2000.

I have since started taking 4000 per day with my reasoning being that since I don't get much sun and we're moving into winter, I would like to get my level to the middle of the range rather than the bottom of the range. So, I'm planning on getting it to about 50ish and then going back to 1000. I am doing blood tests periodically to check my levels. Waiting on results right now after starting the 4000 per day. It will be interesting to see how quickly it changes.

Here's the link.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org /

[CrispyQ]

4. After a discussion on another thread, I looked into vitamin D supplements.

Here's something I found that may be of interest if you're veg:

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

snip...

Dietary supplements

In supplements and fortified foods, vitamin D is available in two forms, D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol). Vitamin D2 is manufactured by the UV irradiation of ergosterol in yeast, and vitamin D3 is manufactured by the irradiation of 7-dehydrocholesterol from lanolin and the chemical conversion of cholesterol <10>. The two forms have traditionally been regarded as equivalent based on their ability to cure rickets, but evidence has been offered that they are metabolized differently. Vitamin D3 could be more than three times as effective as vitamin D2 in raising serum 25(OH)D concentrations and maintaining those levels for a longer time, and its metabolites have superior affinity for vitamin D-binding proteins in plasma <5,39,40>. Because metabolite receptor affinity is not a functional assessment, as the earlier results for the healing of rickets were, further research is needed on the comparative physiological effects of both forms. Many supplements are being reformulated to contain vitamin D3 instead of vitamin D2 <40>. Both forms (as well as vitamin D in foods and from cutaneous synthesis) effectively raise serum 25(OH)D levels <5>.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

7. Lanolin?

Oh bleck. Now what to do...

[Ignis]

8. Ewwwwww...

But what is vitamin D that's labeled "vegetarian formula" made from? Off to do some research.

[Chan790]

9. My guess would be that it's D2 rendered from yeast.

Based off the previous article. If you find anything different, let us know.