Advice needed please! Vitamin D deficiency

[Simba01]

Morning all - I had a doc's appointment yesterday for blood results having been feeling absolutely exhausted for quite a while and then basically hitting a brick wall.

As background, I have underactive thyroid and then pernicious anaemia diagnosed 1.5 years ago.

Results of 24 Jan blood tests were as follows (lots of others results too, but not sure if they're needed on here so won't put them up unless I've missed anything):

Serum TSH 3.81 miu/L (range 0.27 - 4.2)

Serum Free T4 15.7 pmol/L (range 12 - 22)

Serum 25-HO vit D3 18.1 nmol/L (range 50 - 150)

Serum vitamin B12 2000 pg/mL (range 197 - 771)

Serum ferritin 109 ng/mL (range 25 - 300)

Doc said TSH was in range, but reminded her that I saw an Endo around 18 months ago and reminded the doc that he had advised that TSH should be below 1 to feel as good as possible, so doc said "good idea, let's raise from 100mcg to 125 mcg daily". Glad I could help on that one!

I said I'd read that ferritin and folate need to be at optimum levels to assist with B12 and was told that they're both fine and in range. I now have online access so I rechecked records when I got home and can see that folate wasn't tested recently - the last time was Sept 2015 and the result was 4 ug/L (range 3 - 20), so am probably going to get some methylfolate to take in advance of repeat blood tests in 4 weeks - and make sure that they add this to the test.

The one good thing is that no-one has mentioned that my B12 is now too high and that they're stopping injections.

Re Vitamin D3, I've been prescribed capsules of 800IU daily.

I've seen somewhere that need to take care with D3, but can't seem to get my ahead around what else could be needed with it - what else to take/how much of it and when!

Any advice would be much appreciated. I'm really struggling with energy, brain fog, retaining info at the moment, so simple answers on a postcard would be really helpful.

Thanks all

[startagaingirl]

Hi- 800iu of d3 is unlikely to do anything for you, especially with such a low level. I have been taking 3000iu per day for a year and have recently had to double up as d3 was still only 66. I use Better You spray from H & B, others recommend soft gel caps. With d3 it is important to take vitk2-mk7 as it directs the increased uptake of calcium to bones and teeth rather than arteries. Also another co-factor is magnesium. I take Solgar magnesium citrate 2x200 a day. Search for discussions in group about different varieties of magnesium. Your folate may well have gone down again as heavy b12 supplementation uses it up, so yes you should supplement. It is also important to balance all Bs when supplementing. I use Jarrows B-right but Thorne is also widely recommended here.

Well done for getting a Levo dose increase, that should help but keep at it with next blood tests in case you need more.

Good luck

Gillian xx