Vitamin D Question

[DSRIGGS]

Back in October I mentioned that I had stopped oral A & D supplementation and was going exclusively with injections because my absorption of A & D is poor and adding more isn't doing any thing to improve (200K and 300K respectively daily). I had an injection of both A & D on 10/19 before my colon/lysis of adhesion surgery. The D went from 57 to 70 on my 11/6 draw so that injection helped significantly. I had another injection a couple weeks ago and just had labs drawn on Monday. The D came back today at 53. So in the past two months I have had injections of a total of 1,200,000 IU of D. That should have had me over the top high so I am just absolutely baffled.

I have looked and haven't really found anything but is there some condition that would cause my muscle/body not to suck this stuff in? I get why it was not coming up from the oral route, but I just don't get why injections aren't working better. Needless to say, I am a bit agitated about this because my PTH is still in the 50's as well and we know that isn't good for bone health.

Any ideas as to what might be going would be appreciated. I am waiting for the Vit A result to come back so I can see where it is at before I ask Dr K what he thinks is going on.

Thanks!

 

[Spiky Bugger]

So as you know I have stopped oral A & D supplementation and was going exclusively injections because my absorption of A & D is so bad (200K and 300K respectively daily was not doing squat). I had an injection of both on 10/19 before my colon/lysis of adhesion surgery. The D went from 57 to 70 on my 11/6 draw. I had another injection a couple weeks ago and just had labs drawn on Monday. The D came back today at 53. So in the past two months I have had injections of a total of 1,200,000 IU of D. That should have had me over the top high so I am just absolutely baffled.

I have looked and haven't really found anything but is there some condition that would cause my muscle/body not to suck this stuff in? I get why it was not coming up from the oral route, but I just don't get this. Needless to say, I am a bit agitated about this because my PTH is still in the 50's as well and we know that isn't good for bone health.

Any ideas as to what might be going would be appreciated. I am waiting for the Vit A result to come back so I can see where it is at before I ask Dr K what he thinks is going on.

Thanks!

Confused here.

What is the reference range you have for "ideal" Vit D and PTH?

(I'm usually confused, but--to me--your D is smack in the middle of the range and PTH at tbe high end, or just barely above, the range. IOW, both of your values are better than mine.)

 

[DSRIGGS]

For bone health I have always been told D needs to be in the 80-100 range and PTH should be 25 or less. My numbers may be better than what yours are but my point is that I have had injections of 1.2MM IU of D3 in the last 60 days. My D should be sky high but it actually dropped 20 points since this last injection and that makes no sense to me.

20-100 is this lab's reference range for D but for some reason they don't show it on this page:





PTH reference range is 13-85 pg/mL

 

[Spiky Bugger]

Well, I don't know who these people are or what they know...but they SAY that while there is certainly no known risk to Vit D levels that high...there is no proven benefit either. Surely, there is an opposing viewpoint out there and someone will post it.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/i-tested-my-vitamin-d-level-what-do-my-results-mean/

Of course, I have osteoporosis, so I know nothing....

 

[Marquis Mark]

Hey Scott,

I had a D injection at Dr. Ks office on Oct. 10. I had had a draw 3 weeks earlier with a 48 (30-100 range) result that I worked really hard for (150K day + sunbathing) for months. After the injection, Dr. K said I could lay off the pils, so I did. Well, just got the latest D result back... drum roll... 35. It actually dropped 13 in a little over two months. Haven't gotten back my PTH results yet but it was above normal range even when my D was at 48 (which is why I opted for the shot) so it's probably even worse now. Maybe they got an ineffective batch of D from the compounding pharmacy. I don't know. I sent Dr. K an email. We'll see what he suggests.

Hang in there...

 

[Munchkin]

I have been reading about D for freaking decades. A lot, maybe even most, people are deficient and we all malabsorb D. Even the normies. But the public is never tested. And if you live in a northern part of the world where there is not much sun, it's worse. There is very little D that occurs naturally. You either take pills, injections, and or eat foods fortified with D. And it seems we absorb less D as we age. Looks like a losing battle.

Yup, that's a lot of D. But you saw your levels so you must be doing the right thing.

 

[DSRIGGS]

Hey Scott,

I had a D injection at Dr. Ks office on Oct. 10. I had had a draw 3 weeks earlier with a 48 (30-100 range) result that I worked really hard for (150K day + sunbathing) for months. After the injection, Dr. K said I could lay off the pils, so I did. Well, just got the latest D result back... drum roll... 35. It actually dropped 13 in a little over two months. Haven't gotten back my PTH results yet but it was above normal range even when my D was at 48 (which is why I opted for the shot) so it's probably even worse now. Maybe they got an ineffective batch of D from the compounding pharmacy. I don't know. I sent Dr. K an email. We'll see what he suggests.

Hang in there...

Hey Mark. What is interesting is that my D jumped 20 points after the first injection then dropped after the second. I was discussing this today with a very knowledgeably friend and she had a few ideas:

1. You may be using it up to rebuild bone, tissue, immunity, etc. Keep at it it will change. You also don't have a great deal of fat tissue for storage, so it will require continuous doses.
2. Also your liver issue may be part of it too.
3. She said there was a patient who got 50,000 IU injections weekly

Her thoughts seem logical to me.

Dr K did say that I may have to do this for a good 6 months to really build up the D and drive the PTH down. My friend also suggested that I maybe go back on oral supplementation as well, so I am going to order another 1 ML and get another injection then see what it does on my next monthly draw. Depending on those results I may add back the oral as well as cutting my dosage to 300,000 IU or 0.5 ml and twice a month rather than once.

I also need to talk to Central Drugs to see how long the D will last after cracking it open. The 1 ML vial which is 600,000 IU is $50. I think the lady told me they also have a 10 ML for $120 or $150. That wold be much more economical and allow me to do smaller more frequent dosing if necessary. Personally I don't see why the stuff wouldn't last a long time. Vitamins in powder form last a long time so I am not sure why a serum wouldn't as well.

As far as stopping the oral supplementation while doing the injections Dr K was pretty much good if I wanted to stop or if I wanted to continue. He was just looking at it from a cost perspective for me and that if the oral really wasn't helping much why spend the money.

Thanks for the encouragement. Stick with it yourself and hopefully we can both get this licked.

 

[DSRIGGS]

I have been reading about D for freaking decades. A lot, maybe even most, people are deficient and we all malabsorb D. Even the normies. But the public is never tested. And if you live in a northern part of the world where there is not much sun, it's worse. There is very little D that occurs naturally. You either take pills, injections, and or eat foods fortified with D. And it seems we absorb less D as we age. Looks like a losing battle.

Yup, that's a lot of D. But you saw your levels so you must be doing the right thing.

I agree with all of that. My wife has to supplement D as well and she is 5'4 around 135-140 as a normie.

The reason I am pushing so hard on my D is that I know I need it for my overall health and healing from all my surgeries the last 16 months. D is crucial for healing and I know I am using a lot of it because my RETICULOCYTE COUNT is still above range and that means my bones are working hard to regenerate. That lends credence to what my friend said about D being used up for maintaining and building bone. Hopefully if I can get the D up a bit more it will help my body to fight the other weird things my whiny ass had going on.

Thanks

 

[DSRIGGS]

Well, I don't know who these people are or what they know...but they SAY that while there is certainly no known risk to Vit D levels that high...there is no proven benefit either. Surely, there is an opposing viewpoint out there and someone will post it.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/i-tested-my-vitamin-d-level-what-do-my-results-mean/

Of course, I have osteoporosis, so I know nothing....

Yeah, I understand that there is the opposing view, but Dr K and an old nurse of his both advocate keeping D up in the 80's range if possible to help drive the PTH level down for optimal bone health. He is also recommending 3,000 mg of Calcium Citrate or hydroxyapatite (Jarrow Bone up type stuff) daily now, with Magnesium bisglycinate in half the Calcium dosage ...and half of that with food. Calcium is supposed to be separated from everything else per him as well.

Being only 50 and so damn weak, sickly,fatigued, 3 or 4 3 mm & 4 MM stones in my kidneys I really want to get on top of the bone health as best as I can and also try to do my best to stop more kidney stone...of course you know all too well about how damn hard that is.

BTW, I hope you are feeling better with all your issues around the stones, infections and spasms.

 

[Marquis Mark]

Hey Mark. What is interesting is that my D jumped 20 points after the first injection then dropped after the second. I was discussing this today with a very knowledgeably friend and she had a few ideas:

1. You may be using it up to rebuild bone, tissue, immunity, etc. Keep at it it will change. You also don't have a great deal of fat tissue for storage, so it will require continuous doses.
2. Also your liver issue may be part of it too.
3. She said there was a patient who got 50,000 IU injections weekly

Her thoughts seem logical to me.

Dr K did say that I may have to do this for a good 6 months to really build up the D and drive the PTH down. My friend also suggested that I maybe go back on oral supplementation as well, so I am going to order another 1 ML and get another injection then see what it does on my next monthly draw. Depending on those results I may add back the oral as well as cutting my dosage to 300,000 IU or 0.5 ml and twice a month rather than once.

I also need to talk to Central Drugs to see how long the D will last after cracking it open. The 1 ML vial which is 600,000 IU is $50. I think the lady told me they also have a 10 ML for $120 or $150. That wold be much more economical and allow me to do smaller more frequent dosing if necessary. Personally I don't see why the stuff wouldn't last a long time. Vitamins in powder form last a long time so I am not sure why a serum wouldn't as well.

As far as stopping the oral supplementation while doing the injections Dr K was pretty much good if I wanted to stop or if I wanted to continue. He was just looking at it from a cost perspective for me and that if the oral really wasn't helping much why spend the money.

Thanks for the encouragement. Stick with it yourself and hopefully we can both get this licked.

Scott,

Here was my email to Dr. K:

"I had a Vitamin D shot on October 10. Prior to that, my last D level was 48 (lab draw just three weeks prior to the shot). Now, I just got back my latest result: 35! As you can imagine, this is pretty disappointing. Any thoughts?"

And here is the response I just got back:

"This one means that you need more frequent dosing of the Vitamin D until it stabilizes."


So, that sort of aligns with what you're friend said. But I have to say, I'm still baffled by why it would go down, especially since I had slowly but surely been building it up with oral supplementation and sun. I'm going to get another shot and take oral until I have definitive proof that it's working. Haven't gotten my PTH back. If that comes back improved it will lend further credence to your friend's theory. If not, I'm going to be pissed.

UPDATE: My PTH just went from 76 to 78 after my D shot. This is disheartening.

 

[DSRIGGS]

Scott,

Here was my email to Dr. K:

"I had a Vitamin D shot on October 10. Prior to that, my last D level was 48 (lab draw just three weeks prior to the shot). Now, I just got back my latest result: 35! As you can imagine, this is pretty disappointing. Any thoughts?"

And here is the response I just got back:

"This one means that you need more frequent dosing of the Vitamin D until it stabilizes."


So, that sort of aligns with what you're friend said. But I have to say, I'm still baffled by why it would go down, especially since I had slowly but surely been building it up with oral supplementation and sun. I'm going to get another shot and take oral until I have definitive proof that it's working. Haven't gotten my PTH back. If that comes back improved it will lend further credence to your friend's theory. If not, I'm going to be pissed.

Yeah I think our bodies are simply using it and Dr K bascially said the same thing to me. That I could be in such a deficit state with everything going on, no fat to store it, and that the body is using it up and wants more so it could take a hard six months to get on top of it then maintain. I am going to give it a few more months to hopefully see some results but I too was frustrated when I saw that the D dropped, but I do feel a bit better because even though it wasn't much my PTH did drop as well. That is a move in the right direction.

I am also really wanting to see what my A did as well. That one I have a really hard time with even getting in range at all.

 

[Petunia]

Yeah, I understand that there is the opposing view, but Dr K and an old nurse of his both advocate keeping D up in the 80's range if possible to help drive the PTH level down for optimal bone health. He is also recommending 3,000 mg of Calcium Citrate or hydroxyapatite (Jarrow Bone up type stuff) daily now, with Magnesium bisglycinate in half the Calcium dosage ...and half of that with food. Calcium is supposed to be separated from everything else per him as well.

Being only 50 and so damn weak, sickly,fatigued, 3 or 4 3 mm & 4 MM stones in my kidneys I really want to get on top of the bone health as best as I can and also try to do my best to stop more kidney stone...of course you know all too well about how damn hard that is.

BTW, I hope you are feeling better with all your issues around the stones, infections and spasms.

I always get confused with the different types of Calcium and Magnesium. Can we take all our Calcium with the hydroxyapatite type? I'm having to cycle off the Upcal D after about a month to let my body get back to normal, otherwise I look 6 months pregnant and feel bloated and uncomfortable. The Jarrow Bone Up is so much easier for me.

Once my Vitalady Magnesium is gone I'll also switch to the bisglycinate.

Thank you for sharing,
Ruby

 

[chevtow]

If it was me I'd continue popping pills as well as the injections. Cost is low really and benefit is high. And you should stop cheering for the Bears because they still suck.

 

[DSRIGGS]

If it was me I'd continue popping pills as well as the injections. Cost is low really and benefit is high. And you should stop cheering for the Bears because they still suck.

You cheese head dickweed!

Yeah my Bears suck. I am surprised Fox hasn't been fired yet. He has been a huge disappointment.

Yeah, I will resume the oral supplementation. It was a bit experimental. I wanted to see what happened if I stopped oral because my A, D & K all are hard to keep in range for me (Never really have had K in range) and I kept ratcheting up the dosage and it made no difference.

Thanks bro and hope your Packers lose miserably in the first round.