High‑dose Vitamin D reduces disease activity in early multiple sclerosis onset

I thought follow up work also showed it's questionable whether dietary vitamin D actually has any of the benefits that you get through solar vitamin D?

Other than the value you are aiming for (I personally aim for the upper edge of the normal range), I agree with the immense variability in dosage, and also would like to mention imprecision in vitamin D bloodwork tests as well.

Thankfully throughout my Vitamin D research, I found low risk of overdose, and cases of immense accidental overdose that appear to have been treated successfully (mainly by stopping the over-intake).

> Get your bloodwork checked again after a month and proceed from there

As someone who's had a vitamin D deficiency, your serum vitamin d levels will almost certainly vary month to month as a result of the weather.

https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-d/

This is a good place to get that kind of information

Did a masters on Vit D.

Multiple overdoses of over 1 million IU have been recovered from without obvious long-term damage present in near term follow up.

Out of vitamin D’s many potentially clinically positive effects some of the clearest and best evidence is for increased muscle strength.

Personally I take between 5000-10000 IU D3 daily depending on exposure to sun intensity.

> I’ve personally been taking 7500 IU daily for many years now.

And here I am debating whether increasing to 4000 was pushing my luck. I am also reporting less illnesses - or actually - no instances of being bedridden, which is an improvement over the previous flu seasons.

The linked study uses a daily dose of 6,000IU, and references two studies (13,26) which also tout the benefit of supplementing Vitamin D at a 3,000IU dose and a 3,332IU dose, both daily.

The two studies which are referenced (27,28) that do not find any significant benefits followed a different dosing strategy: 20,000IU and 60,000IU, weekly.

It seems like daily, large doses is the best method for supplementing vitamin D. I've seen it suggested to pair vitamin D supplementation with calcium and magnesium [1].

[^1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32972636/

I've experienced something similar and I believe D3 is not to blame.

I took 5k iu oil softgels and got a unique and indescribable BAD feeling. It crept up very gradually over the course of a month and a half and I had a hard time realizing what was happening. It took me over a month to recover after I stopped.

Another time I've taken 2k iu dry D3 and had zero side-effects.

A couple of years after that D3 mishap, I tried some omega-3 and after a two weeks I realized that that unique bad feeling was making a comeback.

Again, another time I tried a different brand of omega-3 I had no side-effects.

I have a bunch of food sensitivities. So I believe that was a reaction to some contaminants in the oil.

Curious.

Could you please share your physical activity level around the time of supplementation?

One of the most interesting studies I found in my research of vitamin D was a study in an elder care center where the patients were given massive doses of vitamin D.

The result of the massive doses were that patience had less hip fractures, but more falls compared to the control.

Now take this next part with a grain of salt because it’s me extrapolating from this result, but due to the known effects of vitamin D on muscle strength and also on bone density, I imagine that these patients were more active, but because vitamin D doesn’t give you coordination as well as strength they were falling more, their bones were more dense so they had less fractures per fall.

The point I’m trying to make and the reason I am curious about your own activity level, is that perhaps that there is a sensation or feeling of your muscles being more primed for action which can be agitating. Perhaps regular activity can link one’s sense of proprioception with increased muscular ability.

Apologies in advance if this is too personal of a pry.

When does a professional come into play? You assumed you're deficient, you asked chatgpt, and now you're asking for anecdotes from HN. Go get some blood work done and talk to a professional who actually knows about these things.

I don't think there's an easy answer as we all have differently tuned bodies with different known/unknown beningn/malevolent conditions. It's probably good to do some short term experimenting, try eating more magnesium and calcium rich foods and see how you feel. If you really want to be objective, get your blood contents measured. (Although blood levels don't show everything, like calcium stores in the bones.)

Always take magnesium with vit D. Ask an LLM why.

I don’t know why you’re being downloaded.

I took 5000 IU of vitamin D for one month and I just happen to have a blood test that was coming up. My calcium levels were elevated. I was told to take this dose by my doctor, because my vitamin D levels, not deficient she felt they were very low.

During this time, my mood also worsened.

Some of us may be more sensitive to calcium transport when taking vitamin D than others, and this is clearly due to genetics. Interestingly enough, there is something in fish which controls this, I can’t think of it off the top of my head right now, but I will look it up and post it later.

So now I only get my vitamin D from natural occurring vitamin D in seafood, and the sun.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, so I created an account specifically to respond.

I've had the same issue. Even when I take low doses of 400iu, vitamin D causes extreme anxiety and mood issues that only go away a couple of days after I stop taking it. I've had to completely cut it out and can't take supplements that contain it. I've also taken various brands so I would assume the additives would be different but who knows. If you search this symptom online, you'll find a lot of people with the same reaction but never any explanation.

Definitely interested to see if anyone has had this same issue and was able to fix it.

Anyway, just a word of caution to anyone reading. Because even 400iu makes me feel very uncomfortable. I don't want to know what would happen at 4,000iu.

1000 ui per day? Thats a small dose, I am myself taking 800 per day but when I skip I just compound it for next dose since D works this way and accumulates, not like vitamin C. I had bad case of deficiency recently (when finally some blood work was done) and initial treatment to jumpstart was IIRC 100k ui.

Maybe you have some sort of sensitivity to medium in which its dissolved?

Same here, and with good results, but a note of warning, according to my doctor 10,000 - 20,000 are considered in the protocol a normal daily supplement for adults with vitamin D issues. Dosages above that require medical supervision (in the form of regular blood and urine analysis). Also at those high doses there are potential negative side effects that must be mitigated (osteoporosis being among them). So please don't just YOLO massive doses of vitamin D.

I take 5000 daily as a maintenance dose. Bloodwork has been basically perfect since I started doing that. If you are deficient doctors often prescribe a massive daily dose like 20000-30000 to get back to normal then drop down to a maintenance dose.

The nice thing with vitamin D is that you can actually check its level in bloodwork. The normal range is often considered to be between 50-125 ng/mL with below 30 considered deficient and above 120 or so considered too much.

I highly recommend people stay on top of this particular vitamin. In addition to evidence that a deficiency significantly affects your immune system functionality, it’s also uncomfortable. My spouse has been deficient in the past and experienced hand cramps, back spasms, muscle aches etc.

It’s fat soluble so it takes a few weeks to get it back to normal after supplementation