A simple Vitamin Deficiency in my case: ... - NRAS
A simple Vitamin Deficiency in my case
It's well recorded that a good, sensible diet can be all it takes as opposed to buying over the counter vitamins. As an RD sufferer of 6 years & having experienced the pain & everything that goes with that without medication I do all I can to help myself in this respect & although do have to take some, Vitamin B12 as support for methotrexate & a calcium/vitamin D supplement to manage the osteopenic/osteoporotic problems exacerbated by steroids, I manage my RD quite well, with the aid of meds of course.
Whilst we all make our own choices the content of this link doesn't necessarily sit well with me as a sufferer of an autoimmune disease, where, for the time being, only specific medication can control & ease my day to day life & guard against future damage.
I took particular note of "Results, ALL NORMAL", so my guess is she did just need a change in diet or supplements as was her chosen route. If you look further into her blog & the amount of followers she has, maybe not the best person to take advice from, considering. I'm sure there are other medically based websites which may be more beneficial which have the proper trials & theories to back up results. Maybe this is looked on as the norm in the US but the only way to find out would be to try it.
I do hope however that if you choose to go this route it works for you.
You go, Girl!- I agree with you. I don't think any of us would willingly try and stay on these dangerous drugs if diet or vitamins could control our illness.
Would that we could, we wouldn't have need for this site. But then again.........wouldn't have this happy band if popping vitamins would cure our ills! 
I agree with the posts above - where's the evidence?
My point exactly & as I quoted she said all her bloods were normal (7 vials of them!) so it's possible all she had was a vitamin deficiency anyway, as she alludes to herself in the last line! I would have chosen the dietary route to see if I had success on that rather than spend money on supplements, far cheaper!
if only it were that simple for the rest of us...
Indeed!
I agree totally with nomoreheels I would say save your brass it will take more than that to help rd
I was the same. It turned out to be a vitamin d deficiency. Cos that can make your bones hurt. Blood test will tell you. I was perscribed vit d tables as there stronger.
I would have though that the best route to take. Of the blood tests she mentioned a vitamin deficiency one wasn't one of them. Odd. Private medical cover perhaps.........?!!!
You can ask for a vitamin d test tho next time. You describe symptoms like me. I was as low as 15. Your ment to be bbetween 50 - 80. So I was very low
No, sorry I don't need a blood test, I take Adcal-D3 as a supplement already, prescribed alongside alendronic acid.
This may prove interesting- there is research being done to see if there is a relationship between Vit D deficiency and RD. I know I had been put on Vit D supplements for a few years before being diagnosed with RA. Doctor could not figure out why my body was not able to absorb Vit D . I spent plenty of time outdoors and my diet was more than adequate. I do believe vitamins can benefit us, but I do not believe diet and or vitamins can control RD alone. Not at all! Not from my experience anyway.
I've heard of this and I'm sure that many of us are unaware of just how important Vitamin D is in maintaining good health AND of how common it is to have low levels.
But it's because these issues can, sometimes, be very relevant to people with chronic diseases that we need a clear explanation and evidence.
MarcyJo, before you decide if this would be beneficial to you or anyone else please consider just what sort of diet she may have. Although she doesn't mention anything about what she eats, which surely would have been the responsible thing to do, my guess is not a particularly good one, maybe not even a 5 a day. She did allude to diet mentioning sailors having scurvy. This is caused by a very poor diet, basically dried grain & salted meat as they had no access to fresh food back in the day. Incidentally, this is why historically the British earned the nickname limeys because the British sailors were given a daily dose of lime juice, packed with vitamin C, to prevent scurvy. There are loads of easily accessible fruit & veg she could get vitamin C from - oranges, blackcurrants, strawberries, potatoes, peas, almost all brassicas, green & red peppers, cooked tomato, the list goes on & if well controlled would benefit from all we need naturally. Spending money on unnecessary supplements is just daft, you are what you eat. Not only that, an average healthy adult only needs 40mg a day & she's advocating 1000mg. All she'll do with that is pee it away as the body doesn't store it. She'll also probably suffer stomach ache, excess wind & diarrhoea too. I wonder if she checked if the multivitamin she's also taking includes vitamin C, possibly the recommended daily amount, most do?
Good luck to her but I'd be placing myself close to the loo as she'll be ODing as there's only one way the body will dispose of it! Have you ever been greedy with a bag of fruit & paid the consequences, I know I have!!
I hope you don't think I'm preaching but I do think this blog is a little irresponsible. Not everyone realises that we naturally absorb vitamin C in the food we eat without even knowing.
I eat very healthily but part of the trouble with absorbing vitamin D for me is that I live in the far north of Scotland and I worry about the sun because I'm on two drugs that warn to keep well covered up even in cloudy weather. I had myself tested privately and was 26 which is at the bottom of insufficient at the end of a good summer. I was told to report this to my GP who had refused to test me in the first place. He accepted that I did need to take and prescribed AdCalD3 one a day. I found this boosted me quite a lot and seemed to improve my moods as well.
However recently I've had a lot of bone ache and a friend with Lupus suggested I top up with 4000 IU per day of D3 as she said that AdCalD3 is only 400IU per day which isn't enough. I read up on the Vitamin D Council and this was confirmed so I'm now taking two capsules of D3 plus my AdCal D3 daily. Still waiting to be transformed! I will get another private test when I'm away in July - it was £25 and well worth it as I did feel much improved by even the smaller dose after about a week. I agree with others - we can tweak ourselves with missing vitamins and minerals but they won't make the RD go away if it really is RD to begin with. Eating well and topping up on missing vitamins just helps to make all our meds work more efficiently I feel.
I know I don't really need to ask this as you're good at it but would you let us know if you do feel extra benefit, basically be our guinea pig! Don't OD though cos you'll get floppy bones lol!! 
Sure NMH - as I started at 26 last September I will let you know where I'm at after a month on the higher dose. My friend said that I should notice the difference within a week and I started on Friday. But if I feel better then it could be the rise in dose of MTX and folic acid so blood test in July will be more reliable I think!
Okey dokey, thanks.
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