Viamin D?

I take 5000 iu D3 day. If I didn't start things in a flare I may not have started anything over the last 15 years, lol. Take with food because it is a fat soluble vitamin and uses fat to get into the body.

i take 10,000 iu a day. never had any gastro side effects from it but i take sublingual tablets.

Thanks. I haven't had insurance until recently so I haven't been tested in awhile.

I'm not necessarily scared of Vitamin D per say, I'm just feeling so upset, scared and confused and in pain that I'm a nervous wreck to do anything. I've only known about IBD a week, and I think I've overwhelmed myself with all the information and stories on the internet lol! I realize how wierd that sounds....but unfortunately it is where I find myself today....

please don't hesitate to drink water, especially if you're losing fluids via pooping your guts out

There is a lot (I mean a LOT) of conflict on what the range should be. Even the medical practitioners don't know for sure but I have been digging into it for a year or so and read extensive literature. It turns out, its best around 60ng/ml

Keep all fat soluble vitamins in check i.e. A, E, K and D. You can not take only one of these. With Vit E, do not use dl-form (which is synthetic) instead use mixed tocopherols. Consider supplementing good quality cod liver oil (natural source of Vit E and A). I use Blue Ice fermented cod liver oil.

I take 2000IU/day and my levels are 68ng/ml

According to the Medscape article on diet that was linked here LondonLurker -- I just promoted the link with the full article:

Low serum concentrations of Vitamin D have been reported in 63% of patients with CD,[40] but caution is needed in interpreting this as 25-OH vitamin D acts as a negative acute phase reactant and serum concentrations may be an unreliable guide to vitamin D deficiency.[41] Prediction of vitamin D deficiency from diet and lifestyle in a prospective cohort study of 72 719 women (age, 40–73 years) enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study showed that those predicted to have vitamin D levels in the top quartile compared with those in the bottom quartile had a significantly reduced risk for CD [Hazard Ratio 0.54 (95% CI 0.30–0.99)] and a nonsignificantly reduced risk for UC HR 0.65 (0.34–1.25).[42] A randomised placebo-controlled trial of maintenance supplementation with 1200 IU/day of vitamin D in 94 patients with CD, regardless of vitamin D status on entry, showed a reduction in relapse rate (from 29% to 13%) that very nearly reached significance (P = 0.06).[43] The vitamin D supplement dose of 1200 IU was relatively low and 2000 IU/day has been shown to be safe i.e. without risk of hypercalcaemia.[44]

Patients with IBD have up to 40% increased risk of fractures compared with the general population[45] and osteoporosis is common, particularly in patients who have received corticosteroids. Routine vitamin D supplementation is therefore not unreasonable even though clear evidence of its efficacy is lacking for prevention of disease relapse or osteoporosis.



Although this doesn't address the UC patient directly, and although the results don't create strong evidence in its favor to prevent flares, the results (to me, at least) would indicate that in most cases, starting Vitamin D should not cause a flare.

I take 2,000 IU per day and a 50,000 IU rx pill twice per month. I couldn't get above 40 on just the 2000 per day, since adding the 50K at my GI's suggestion I've gone up to 60. Pretty happy!

I'm also on 5000 units a day. Periodically I still have to go on the really mega-dose schedule because it gets low. This is even without flaring. My levels still hover at the low end of normal to just below normal.

My PCP checks levels every three to six months. So far I've barely managed to get in the recommended range once, then it went down again. If it's still down in February, she's going to change the program.

I can't do sun because my skin is so fair I burn and blister even with sunscreen.

deltaforce said...

Pluot said...
I take 2,000 IU per day and a 50,000 IU rx pill twice per month. I couldn't get above 40 on just the 2000 per day, since adding the 50K at my GI's suggestion I've gone up to 60. Pretty happy!

I hope, You are supplementing with A, E and K2 as well, else you may see deficiency in them.

Can you please explain this?

Pluot said...

deltaforce said...

Pluot said...
I take 2,000 IU per day and a 50,000 IU rx pill twice per month. I couldn't get above 40 on just the 2000 per day, since adding the 50K at my GI's suggestion I've gone up to 60. Pretty happy!

I hope, You are supplementing with A, E and K2 as well, else you may see deficiency in them.

Can you please explain this?

I came across some literature that talked about how these fat soluble vitamins interact with each other in the system and how all of these need to be in balance for well functioning. How supplementing one Vit can be detrimental because it uses up the reserves of other vitamins.
Vit D is a major player in calcium transport in the body. Once you start supplementing with Vit D, calcium deposits, if any, will be relocalized to bones and the arteries. Should you not supplement with Vit K2, the calcium that is needed in bones but not the arteries, will go the arteries as well, developing a possibility of atherosclerosis. Essentially, K2 is a signal to tell calcium to go to bones and not to arteries. Hence you need K2.

There are similar explanations to A and E as well but I don't remember them. I just made the notes and since then I have been supplementing 10K IU of Vit A, one caplet of Super K and 400mg each of alpha and gamma forms of tocopherol once a week (in addition to 2000 IU of Vit D daily). Plus, I get some 20-30mg of K2 through my multivitamin daily.

I will re-evaluate this regimen in next summer and decide if I should keep it.

@Gary,
This research will keep coming and going, but I personally believe, they help. Plus, I think that the way this study has been analysed has a ton of flaws. If a smoker starts drinking carrot juice or Vit A with beta carotene in it, it is certainly going to increase his odds of developing lung cancer but someone making a blanket statement that Vit A is bad because it develops lung cancer is plain wrong. Certainly, I still think that clean and good quality food is the best source, but in the age of Monsanto, we don't have that.
IMO, such kind of research is practically impossible because of the zillions of variabltes it will need to incorporate in the study.

Stealth brought up an interesting topic. We are/were riding high on low cholesterol diet / low fat dairy, but we fail to understand that it IS detrimental to our health. Cholesterol is a building block of our body and although increased cholesterol is signaled as a risk factor for CVD, I strongly believe that is a load of BS (and now they want our teenagers to start popping the statin pill, ignoring the side effect it brings). Low fat food is promoted to fight obesity, my arse, it is promoted so that dairy industry can sell you watery milk and make a ton of money from selling you cheese and pricey fatty products. I wonder, how many really control their obesity by reducing fat intake.
Offnote, I just finished reading 2 books on milk industry and they discuss how milk is one of the cause of so many inflammatory diseases we have been noticing in modern world (along with politics of it). If anybody wants to read those books, drop a line.

My brother was obese. When his wife was pregnant, it was hard to figure out who was pregnant, him or his wife. He met an old school nutritionist. She asked him to jack up his good fat intake, reduce industrial oil intake, add exercise and good quality good and viola in 2 months, he is down 30 lbs (from about 225lbs).

Please note, I am not promoting conspiracy theories. I am trained as a pharmacist, I never practiced it but DS getting diagnosis of Autism forced me to look into alternative options and it is enlightening to see how we are fooled and brainwashed into believing something that is plain BS, right from the school days. We engrave so much on our brain that we don't tolerate negations, until we burn our fingers.

Deltaforce said...
Once you start supplementing with Vit D, calcium deposits, if any, will be relocalized to bones and the arteries. Should you not supplement with Vit K2, the calcium that is needed in bones but not the arteries, will go the arteries as well, developing a possibility of atherosclerosis.

That probably explains why calcium supplementation is associated with increased incidence of stroke and heart attacks. But there is a catch-22 here. Many with cardiac risk factors are prescribed blood thinners and told to avoid vitamin K because it promotes blood clotting. That is why I try to avoid meds as much as I can because they can interfere with my diet and supplements.

But many people get K2 from the bacteria flora in their intestines. I don't know if IBDers get much K2 with their inflamed guts. I always recommend everyone supplement with magnesium, especially if you are taking calcium. I wonder if magnesium will help prevent the detrimental effects of too much calcium supplementation.

deltaforce said...
If a smoker starts drinking carrot juice or Vit A with beta carotene in it, it is certainly going to increase his odds of developing lung cancer

Maybe. That is the conventional wisdom but I am skeptical. I thought those studies involved people taking beta carotene supplements only, not carrots or carrot juice. My theory, (and this is just my personal belief), is that the reason why beta carotene supplements alone were dangerous is because they are not balanced. The participants in that study received only beta carotene, not the many alpha, beta, Gamma, delta, epsilon, and zeta-carotenes that come as a package deal when you consume natural foods like carrots.

This is easiest to understand with the B complex vitamins. If you take too much of vitamin B1, yes the body will excrete the excess amounts that you don't need. But your body will also excrete B2 thru B12 along with it. That is why you can get a deficiency of vitamin B complex if you supplement with only one vitamin in that complex.

I would like to see the same studies about beta carotene redone but this time have the participants receive their beta carotene from natural sources such as carrot juice.