Hi, Brianna, there must be a way to get your D levels up. I would have your Dr. contact Dr. Michael Holick at Boston U Med Ctr. If anyone knows what to do in this special case, it is him. It is incredibly important to get this resolved.  Let me know what happens and you can help countless others with the same or a similar problem!!!

Dr. Michael Holick
Boston University
School of Medicine
715 Albany Street
M-1013
Boston, MA 02118
617.638.4545
mfholick@bu.edu

Hi, Brianna, thanks for your response about your magnesium. I can't figure out how to find the blog entry that you mentioned.  Don't pay attention to the "borderline" issue.  My endocrinologist and I are learning that you can't always go by the book with vitaminD deficiency. For example, the minimum dietary magnesium is 320 mg per day for females. We learned that I need two 400 mg twice a day to keep my cramping from coming back, one in the morning and one at night.  Tell your doctor who is treating your vit D deficiency to look at the Lancet study that I mentioned in my last msg to you and try you on a higher dose of magnesium.  Know that Milk of Magnesia can be taken 2-3x per day as an antacid at 500-600 mg/dose.  It is taken as a laxative at doses of 1500-5000mg.  So taking 800 mg as I am doing under my doctor's care is not over the top, and your doctor will probably agree that it is worth trying something like this to see if your D levels rise.  Have your doctor go to www.vitamindcouncil.org and do a search on magnesium (search is a small box half-way down on the left side of the homepage) and look for a newsletter dated July 2009. Lancet is a VERY prestigious scientific journal that is very hard to get published in, so the study should be taken seriously, and your D deficiency should be taken seriously.  I would also have your doctor contact the many scientists who have formed a consortium on www.grassrootshealth.net and see if any of them have suggestions. Do NOT let your vitamin D deficiency go unresolved. Good luck.

BRIANNA!!  I think I found something for you about why your vit D might not be increasing!!! It might have to do with a magnesium deficiency.  Go to the following website and look for the article about magnesium and vitamin D:  http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/more-vitamin-d-questions-and-answers.shtml.  Here's an excerpt: "Two interesting cases of Mg dependent Vitamin D-resistant rickets appeared in the Lancet in 1974. Two children, one age two and the other age five, presented with classic rickets. 600,000 IU of Vitamin D daily for ten days did not result in any improvement in six weeks—in either x-rays or alkaline phosphatase—and the doctors diagnosed Vitamin D-resistant rickets. Almost by accident, serum Mg levels were then obtained, which were low in both children. After the treatment with Mg, the rickets rapidly resolved."  I'm not saying you have rickets as this is a developmental disease caused by vitamin D deficiency in growing children, but go check how much magnesium you are getting in your diet.  Maybe your condition is somehow related.  I was havingdebilitating muscle cramps, and it was due to a magnesium deficiency. I have to take 400 mg in the morning and 400 mg at night to keep the cramps from occuring.  USRDA of magnesium is 320 mg/day for women.  Milk of Magnesia is used for antacid purposes at a dose of 600 mg, up to 3x per day, so what I'm taking is well within an acceptable range.  Costco has a good magnesium supplement that is affordable that is 400 mg.  Check with your doctor and he/she should tell you to try one or two capsules per day for a month and get your vit D retested! I hope this works!!!

Hi, Brianna, I’m 4 months into recovering from vit D deficiency. My recommendations: 1) check your med’s -- some med’s lower vit D levels, such as anti-seizure med’s. 2) Write to the following PhD’s/doctors, describe your situation and give a list of your med's: MF Holick (www.vitamindhealth.org), Reinhold Vieth (reinhold.vieth@utorono.ca), William Grant (wbgrant@infionline.net), John Cannell (www.vitamindcouncil.org). 3) Get a home test kit at www.vitamindcouncil.org to compare it with your last test. 4) When your level got to 23, are you sure you didn't stop taking the 50K pill. I don't mean to be insulting, but people with D deficiency often stop taking megadoses as soon as their levels rise, and their levels drop immediately. 5) If you are getting sun, are you getting "sensible sun exposure" without sunscreen? Sunscreen blocks almost all the UVB rays that cause the skin to produce vit D. Whole body exposure without sunscreen till you just turn rosy produces 10K-20K of vit D. This is about 15-30 min's for a fair-skinned person, longer for dark/tanned skin. Exposure of arms and face for the same time produces about 1000 IU's. Then put sunscreen on for skin cancer protection. Every 100 IU's of D is supposed to raise the blood level by 1 ng/ml. 6) Get your body fat percentage checked. Excess vit D gets stored in the fat.  If you are really lean, maybe there isn't enough storage space for vit D in your body. This is my own theory, not in the literature. 7) Beware: farmed salmon has 25% the amount of vit D as wild salmon, not all milk has the D that is advertised on the carton. 8) Vit D has receptors all over the body and is involved in all body systems, including cardio and immune systems. It activates over 2000 genes in the body and some of these genes are known to code for anti-microbial proteins to protect against bacteria and viruses. Keep asking and researching.

Hi Brianna,  I just joined this group and I am happy to read about your goals and dreams and what you are accomplishing thus far.  Good for you.  Glad to see you making things happen.

Maxgirl

Hello Brianna:

I hope you will be healthy person without any think that can disturb you.

As you know Physical Therapy, so I invite you to see how you can help migraine patients and other kinds of headaches to make the headaches stop within only one minute if you do my migraine pressure points test.

See my web site to see my video how to do it.

www.alisultaneh.8m.com

Best Wishes

Hi Brianna,

Thanks for the comment!  I will try the body pillow, for sure.  My back does hurt at times so that would make a big diffence, I'm sure.  I read your profile.  God bless you for what you do.  I love your attitude about each day bringing a new challange to face and conquer!!   Many blessings to you!  Emily

stkatesgirl

Thank you for your advice but I live Canada and the mayo clinic would be out for me.  Also I have tryed Gabapentin and it did nothing for me.  thank you Vicki

Thanks Stkatesgirl so much for your comment! You know I used to do that years ago. I don't know why I stopped. I am going to find a place that offers that and start again as soon as possible. I have been going through this pain and weakness among other things, for about 25 years. I can appreciate all your going through and what it takes to deal with it on a daily basis. I've finally learned that I can't do it all by myself. I appreciate all the comments and am going to try it all.

Thanks again. I commend you on your determination and accomplishments.

Thank you for yoru feed back.

I'm hoping it's just the vitamins along with good nutrition. You can get too much of certain vitamins. A very few are water solable. Which means you can take as much as you dare risk. If the body will take what it can and flush the rest away. But taking too much of the other vitamins can build up in your body. Nutritionist ideally want you to get all your nutrents from the foods you eat. If we can't eat right. Then vitamins are a good thing.

Can you tell? I wanted to be a nutristionist :)

Take care

lynn