Advice on vitamin D deficiency?

[peach_sapphire]

Hi, I hope you’re all well! I found out the other day that I’m severely deficient in vitamin D. My doctor has prescribed 20,000IU of vitamin D twice a week for 7 weeks, but I’ve also read that you should take vitamin K and magnesium alongside this. How much should I be taking of these vitamins alongside 20,000IU of vitamin D? I’ve read conflicting info online.

Also, how do my blood test results look in general? Thanks for reading!

[magsyh]

Difficult to read and cant see your actual vit d result but did notice it sahs ferritin normal? Its far from normal, only 27! Should be more like 80. That is a mega dose of vit d. I use 5000-6000iu per day and about 100mcg vit k2 mk7 per day. Magnesium i use gel on my skin as any oral magnesium sends me straight to the toilet! I would think a daily dose of about 100mcg of k2 would be fine as k2 a blood thinner it would be dangerous in high amounts. I dont know much about your other tests but hope this helps

[peach_sapphire in reply to magsyh]

Vitamin d result was 24nmol. Thanks for the advice - I’m taking ferritin again too, plus magnesium and vitamin K2 alongside the D. Not sure if I’m suffering side effects or not but I feel awful, achy from head to toe, exhausted, drained... hoping it passes

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

peach_sapphire

NICE treatment summary for Vit D deficiency:

cks.nice.org.uk/vitamin-d-d...

"Treat for Vitamin D deficiency if serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels are less than 30 nmol/L.

For the treatment of vitamin D deficiency, the recommended treatment is based on fixed loading doses of vitamin D (up to a total of about 300,000 international units [IU] given either as weekly or daily split doses, followed by lifelong maintenace treatment of about 800 IU a day. Higher doses of up to 2000IU a day, occasionally up to 4000 IU a day, may be used for certain groups of people, for example those with malabsorption disorders. Several treatment regims are available, including 50,000 IU once a week for 6 weeks (300,000 IU in total), 20,000 IU twice a week for 7 weeks (280,000 IU in total), or 4000 IU daily for 10 weeks (280,000 IU in total)."

So your GP is following the guidance.

Once your loading doses have been completed you will need a reduced amount (more than likely you'll be prescribed nothing or 800iu so post your new result at the time for members to suggest a dose) to bring your level up to what's recommended by the Vit D Council - which is 125nmol/L and the Vit D Society recommends 100-150nmol/L - and then you'll need a maintenance dose which may be 2000iu daily, maybe more or less, maybe less in summer than winter, it's trial and error so it's recommended to retest once or twice a year to keep within the recommended range. You can do this with a private fingerprick blood spot test with an NHS lab which offers this test to the general public:

vitamindtest.org.uk/

You are correct that magnesium Vit K2-MK7 is required. The correct amount of K2 is 90-100mcg for up to 10,000iu.

Magnesium you just take the suggested dose on the pack of whichever form of magnesium you choose. Different forms listed here, choose which is most suitable for you

naturalnews.com/046401_magn...

Ferritin is recommended to be half way through range, with a minimum of 70 for thyroid hormone to work properly. Yours is very low and I would ask your GP to do an iron panel. Your full blood count doesn't seem to indicate iron deficiency anaemia but you need the iron panel to check serum iron level, TIBC and transferrin saturation.

You can help raise your level by eating liver regularly, maximum 200g per week due to it's high Vit A content, also liver pate, black pudding, and including lots of iron rich foods in your diet apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/in...

All other results are in range.

[peach_sapphire in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks for the great advice. I’ve started taking magnesium and Vitamin K2 alongside the D. I feel terrible the last few days though - exhausted, drained, achy from head to toe. Hoping it passes soon

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to peach_sapphire]

Did you start the new supplements together? If so stop them for a couple of days and see if you improve. Then add one of them, wait 2 weeks, if all OK add the next one, etc. That way if a supplement causes problems you will know which one it is.