Does vitamin D make you feel better?

I take it when I remember and don’t feel it makes any difference subjectively. So I do it on faith; half the time I forget, however.

When my vitamin D level is up in mid normal ranges I feel significantly better. My main symptoms are muscle pain, cramping, and weakness. I only notice it when I use the muscle, I don’t wake up in pain. I was working my way to becoming a criple I think, the D changed everything. It isn’t “taking” D, but actually getting my levels up. So, even if I take D, but it isn’t enough, it does nothing. It has to be a therapeutic dose. If I don’t take it my D levels plummet way below normal range.

When I took Rx strength D, it made me feel significantly better.

I get my vitamin D from sunlight, When I spend time outside, I feel great.

Adequate vitamin D is essential to good health, and because my vitamin D tests so low, I take supplements now. I am healthier for it. If you’re going to a compounding pharmacy for this, perhaps you’re taking extra high amounts, or maybe there’s another reason.

This misconception about maintaining D levels through diet does have a degree of ground since vitamin D is not a stand alone vitamin. To perform many functions, vitamin D works in cooperation with other vitamins like magnesium, which can be found in leafy green vegetables such as spinach. This unique characteristic of vitamin D has contributed to the management of many chronic illnesses.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035089_vitamin_D_deficiency_signs_symptoms.html#ixzz2f7FPjTqM

If you’re deficient n vitamin D it will, if you’re not it won’t.

@trailsillustrated What dosage are you supposed to get? When I got the prescription for it, my level of D was virtually zero, so I was taking 50,000 IU per week. That’s when I really felt the difference. When it was cut back to 10,000/week, I didn’t maintain that overall good feeling.

@augustlan my rx- vit d 100,000 iu in 1 ml liquid preparation take 1 ml po monthly with 2 repeats. I’m going to get it filled today.

It matters, I have a bit more energy. Biggest thing I have noticed is I have not had a cold in several years and I don’t think it’s coincidence. Most of us are low in D and its hard for your body to “catch up” by spending extra time in the sun.

And I live in Australia=sunshine, so, my vit D must have been nil.

One might ask, what exactly does vitamin D. I only think I know what it does and I only think it has to do with helping the body absorb calcium.

I’d love to know more

Vitamin D is de rigueur. They are trying to find associatations between VItamin D and everythign these days. I think the craze will even out for it, and we’ll have a better idea of what VItamin D is and isn’t related to.
If your level on your blood test is low, you should probably take it, though
Graph on the right hand side of the page shows recent explosiong of studies

Thanks @drhat77 willing to try anything feel like crap eh.

In Florida, in the sunshine state, more or less the same amount of people are vitamin D deficient as northern states now that we protect our skin so much from the sun. Here in FL most of us use sunscreen with SPF every day. The whitest I have ever been is while I lived in FL. No tan, no D. SPF blocks D absorption, and so does clothing and keeping yourself shaded. Again, no tan, no D. UVB rays give us our tans and give us the D, and that is exactly what suntan lotion blocks, and all the cosmetics we use that have sun protection block UVB also.

Traditionally, we see diseases like MS cluster in the low sunlight states in the upper midwest, but it is observed all over the country to some extent of course. I wonder if more and more it is turning up in warm states now that we protect ourselves from the sun so much. I really think the D has saved me, or at least pushed far into the future, some sort of serious neuromuscular problem.

There are conflicting studies regarding D, but I know many many people who notice a big difference if they are taking a therapeutic dose. I know two people who went from limping to not limping anymore, because of the pain in their leg or foot.

However, if someone is feeling fine, I agree with @Judi, you aren’t likely to feel a difference. I think vitamin D deficiency taxes the body over time. So, women like me who have pritected their skin for 15 years might start to have troubles, while the vitamin D deficient 22 year old may not be feeling the affects yet. I think it might partly explain why so many women have so many problems, including autoimmune problems. This is all my own guessing, there is no concrete scientific proof.

Make sure to have your blood calcium level tested not too long after starting (they should check your D level in a few months anyway to see how you are doing). High blood calcium is serious, it is a cardiac risk, and risk to other organs as well. Some doctors don’t check it, I guess they don’t read the package insert or something for the D they are prescribing.

Relevant: http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/89/11/5387.long

@snowberry My personal experience does not jibe with the conclusions of that study. Taking 50,000 IU D2 raised my vitamin D level up into normal. When I switched to around 15,000 IU of D3 my numbers plummeted. Not that my body can speak for everyone. Your link was very interesting though. I hope they do a larger long term study of D. The common thinking seems to be D3 is much better, so I am not arguing that. I wish there was a prescription D3. The only one I know of is Calcitriol, which has calcium as well I think? Or, it is prescribed to raise blood calcium levels, maybe it also has other properties, I don’t know. My knowledge is limited about that drug.

Yes it will make you feel better, but not make you totally happy go lucky. I have chronic depression and when I started taking vitamin D along with another antidepressant it helped me more. You can never get enough vitamin D. That and exercise!

Just got this article from RealAge on why Vitamin D might make you feel better.

@College_girl You absolutely can overdose on D. You cannot overdose on D from the sun, but you can from supplements. It’s pretty hard to do, you would have to take a lot of OTC pills, but it is possible and can be dangerous. All fat soluble vitamins can be overdosed, A D, E, and K.

@JLeslie I can overdose on Tylenol too. I can also go outside and eat berries off of my neighbor’s bushes and be poisoned. So let’s make absolutely everything only available by prescription, including food and non-food. Doing this will cure everything from obesity to suicide by poisoning!

@snowberry Who is talking about prescriptions? I am just letting @College_girl know she is wrong. Some people believe you cannot overdose on vitamins and minerals, because people say things like, “you just pee the extra out,” but that is absolutely not true fr some vitamins. Overdose on iron and it can cause heart arythmia and death. It is why iron is always in really difficult bottles to open or really difficult blister cards and has warnings all over to keep it away from children. A, D, E, and K we do not pee out like B and C vitamins. I am just giving information. Even B and C I personally think taxes out body when we take huge doses, there is some research to support it can be a problem, but the standard thinking is you can’t overdose on B and C.

Remember I take 60,000 IU’s of vitamin D, I think the USRDA recommendation is still at 400 IU’s daily. Nothing.

Correction: 60,000 IU’s a week.

Thanks for correcting me @jleslie I honestly thought it wasn’t possible to overdose, but I guess it’s possible to overdose on almost everything really. Thank you for giving the correct info and letting me know :)