[Vowel Lady]

Has anyone here heard of Fibro patients having unusually low Vitamin D levels?
Or that taking Vitamin D helps with low energy?
My doc insisted that I take a Vit. D blood test...which, I recently took (results not in yet)
Thanks....

[fiberowendy2000]

My FM doc suggested I take Vitamin D supplements but I found that the dosage didn't agree with me. He wanted me to take 3000mgs a day of it and my face broke out.
Maybe you could tolerate it better.

[honeyroses]

Originally Posted by Vowel Lady

Has anyone here heard of Fibro patients having unusually low Vitamin D levels?
Or that taking Vitamin D helps with low energy?
My doc insisted that I take a Vit. D blood test...which, I recently took (results not in yet)
Thanks....

Yes. Low vitamin D levels can mimic fibromyalgia. Recent research suggests most of the population has low vitamin D. Vitamin D is a natural steroid precursor hormone. I had to beg to get mine tested and it was low (20 is officially deficient based on the onset of rickets but I've heard the RDA may be revised upwards by doubling or even quadripling it) at 23 or 24. 50 or above is considered optimal.

I have felt definite improvements to my fibro with the addition of vitamin d (and calcium).

[rumpled]

Wendy - did you take D3?
I also have low Vitamin D levels (as well as low PTH with is the parathyroid hormone that regulates calcium).
Look on the label and make sure they type you got was D3. Even 1000 iu may make a difference.

[fiberowendy2000]

Just a regular Vitamin D complex suppliment. I believe that it has the D3 in it. I haven't looked at the bottle in a while.

[Undecided]

I read somewhere that vitamin D is fat soluble. If you get too much it can be toxic. I can't believe a doctor told you 3,000 I.U. a day. That is too much. The natural form of vitamin D is different. I guess 20 mins. in the sun can give you 10,000 I. U. but the natural form is ok. When you take the man-made stuff I thought they said people should get 800 I.U. a day.

[mrsD]

here is a new paper:

Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Jan;85(1):6-18.Click here to read Links
Risk assessment for vitamin D.
Hathcock JN, Shao A, Vieth R, Heaney R.

Council for Responsible Nutrition, Washington, DC 20036-5114, USA. jhathcock@crnusa.org

The objective of this review was to apply the risk assessment methodology used by the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) to derive a revised safe Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for vitamin D. New data continue to emerge regarding the health benefits of vitamin D beyond its role in bone. The intakes associated with those benefits suggest a need for levels of supplementation, food fortification, or both that are higher than current levels. A prevailing concern exists, however, regarding the potential for toxicity related to excessive vitamin D intakes. The UL established by the FNB for vitamin D (50 microg, or 2000 IU) is not based on current evidence and is viewed by many as being too restrictive, thus curtailing research, commercial development, and optimization of nutritional policy. Human clinical trial data published subsequent to the establishment of the FNB vitamin D UL published in 1997 support a significantly higher UL. We present a risk assessment based on relevant, well-designed human clinical trials of vitamin D. Collectively, the absence of toxicity in trials conducted in healthy adults that used vitamin D dose > or = 250 microg/d (10,000 IU vitamin D3) supports the confident selection of this value as the UL.

PMID: 17209171 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

There is a very long and complete thread over at BrainTalk in the vitamin forum. Interested people should take a look.

Vit D3 is what you want to use. I just noticed that NatureMade has come out with D3 in 1000IU tablets. I just bought that bottle.
It replaces the 400 IU (taking 3 of those) I was previously using. I always feel better in summer, when I tan up and am outside alot more. So 3 seasons ago I started taking 1000IU in winter only. I am going to raise that to 2000IU (two of the new tablets daily soon as my old bottle is almost empty). I am going back to the doctor next month, and will ask for the D test then just to see where I am at.

I have my husband on it now too. I believe in going slowly, because the body is not equipped for ultra high doses, IMO.

[lou_lou]

Originally Posted by Vowel Lady

Has anyone here heard of Fibro patients having unusually low Vitamin D levels?
Or that taking Vitamin D helps with low energy?
My doc insisted that I take a Vit. D blood test...which, I recently took (results not in yet)
Thanks....

hello vowel lady,
if you wish to read a good source of information on Vitamins etc.
please go to the link provided below

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocente...mins/vitaminD/

partial information on Vitamin D - not specifically referencing Fibromyalgia
Muscle Weakness and Pain

Vitamin D deficiency causes muscle weakness and pain in children and adults. Muscle pain and weakness was a prominent symptom of vitamin D deficiency in a study of Arab and Danish Moslem women living in Denmark (20). In a cross-sectional study of 150 consecutive patients referred to a clinic in Minnesota for the evaluation of persistent, nonspecific musculoskeletal pain, 93% had serum 25(OH)D levels indicative of vitamin D deficiency (21). A randomized controlled trial found that supplementation of elderly women with 800 IU/day of vitamin D and 1,200 mg/day of calcium for three months increased muscle strength and decreased the risk of falling by almost 50% compared to supplementation with calcium alone (22).

Risk Factors for Vitamin D Deficiency

Exclusively breast fed infants: Infants who are exclusively breast fed and do not receive vitamin D supplementation are at high risk of vitamin D deficiency, particularly if they have dark skin and/or receive little sun exposure (19). Human milk generally provides 25 IU of vitamin D per liter, which is not enough for an infant if it is the sole source of vitamin D. Older infants and toddlers exclusively fed milk substitutes and weaning foods that are not vitamin D fortified are also at risk of vitamin D deficiency (18). The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all infants that are not consuming at least 500 ml (16 ounces) of vitamin D fortified formula or milk be given a vitamin D supplement of 200 IU/day (19).
Dark skin: People with dark skin synthesize less vitamin D on exposure to sunlight than those with light skin (1). The risk of vitamin D deficiency is particularly high in dark-skinned people who live far from the equator. In the U.S., 42% of African American women between 15 and 49 years of age were vitamin D deficient compared to 4% of White women (23).
Aging: The elderly have reduced capacity to synthesize vitamin D in the skin when exposed to UVB radiation, and are more likely to stay indoors or use sunscreen. Institutionalized adults are at extremely high risk of vitamin D deficiency without supplementation (24, 25).
Covering all exposed skin or using sunscreen whenever outside: Osteomalacia has been documented in women who cover all of their skin whenever they are outside for religious or cultural reasons (26, 27). The application of sunscreen with an SPF factor of 8 reduces production of vitamin D by 95% (1).
Fat malabsorption syndromes: Cystic fibrosis and cholestatic liver disease impair the absorption of dietary vitamin D (28).
Inflammatory bowel disease: People with inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn’s disease appear to be at increased risk of vitamin D deficiency, especially those who have had small bowel resections (29).
Obesity: Obesity increases the risk of vitamin D deficiency (30). Once vitamin D is synthesized in the skin or ingested, it is deposited in body fat stores, making it less bioavailable to people with large stores of body fat.
Assessing Vitamin D Nutritional Status

Growing awareness that vitamin D insufficiency has serious health consequences beyond rickets and osteomalacia highlights the need for accurate assessment of vitamin D nutritional status. Although there is general agreement that the serum 25(OH)D level is the best indicator of vitamin D deficiency and sufficiency, the cutoff values have not been clearly defined (17). While laboratory reference ranges for serum 25(OH)D levels are often based on average values from populations of healthy individuals, recent research suggests that health-based cutoff values aimed at preventing secondary hyperparathyroidism and bone loss should be considerably higher. In general, serum 25(OH)D values less than 20-25 nmol/L indicate severe deficiency associated with rickets and osteomalacia (16, 18). Although 50 nmol/L has been suggested as the low end of the normal range (31), more recent research suggests that PTH levels (32, 33) and calcium absorption (34) are not optimized until serum 25(OH)D levels reach approximately 80 nmol/L . Thus, at least one vitamin D expert has argued that serum 25(OH)D values less than 80 nmol/L should be considered deficient (16), while another suggests that a healthy serum 25(OH)D value is between 75 nmol/L and 125 nmol/L (35). Data from supplementation studies indicates that vitamin D intakes of at least 800-1,000 IU/day are required by adults living in temperate latitudes to achieve serum 25(OH)D levels of at least 80 nmol/L (36, 37).


The Adequate Intake (AI)

In 1997, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine felt that the issue of sunlight exposure confounded the existing data on vitamin D requirements, making it impossible to calculate an RDA (28). Instead, the Food and Nutrition Board set adequate intake levels (AI) that assume no vitamin D is being synthesized in the skin through exposure to sunlight. The AI values established in 1997 (see table below) reflect vitamin D intakes likely to maintain serum 25(OH)D levels of at least 37.5 nmol/L, which many experts now feel is too low (2, 16, 17).





This is the Link to the Linus Pauling Institute -
Linus Pauling won two Nobels for his study's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArkbEv0Q8D8
you may also watch "Linus Pauling" @ "youtube"
for you can watch him speak to an audience - he is very humourous brilliant man...