Posted by Tomatheus on March 1, 2014, at 20:18:18
In reply to Re: Interesting study on vitamin D, serotonin, posted by herpills on March 1, 2014, at 18:29:37
Herpills,
Thank you for your message. I am still (or perhaps I should say "once again") supplementing with vitamin D3. I've started and stopped supplementing with the vitamin a few times now, with my longest stint on vitamin D3 lasting 3.5 months and my current trial lasting about a month. I'll probably write an update on my vitamin D thread further up on this board soon, but I will say here that since the last time I posted to my vitamin D thread, I've increased my dose twice: first from 1,200 IU to 1,600 IU, and then from 1,600 IU to 2,000 IU. My symptoms haven't been perfectly consistent since I've started taking vitamin D3 again most recently, but my energy, concentration, overall cognition, and time spent asleep (less being better for me because I experience hypersomnia) have all been better than how they are when I'm just taking Abilify (or just Abilify with niacin). So, I seem to be responding positively at this point. I do intend on staying on vitamin D3 for at least six months (maybe even a year or longer) even if I don't continue to respond positively, just in case it might take a really long time to see a full response to supplementation.
Do you happen to know which unit of measurement was used when your vitamin D level was measured? According to Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., M.D. (2010), a vitamin D level of 28 ng/mL would be considered to be insufficient -- assuming that your lab used ng/mL as the units of measurement. Mine was 21.9 ng/mL when I had it tested about a year ago, which also falls into Dr. Holick's insufficient range. Basically, levels below 20 ng/mL are considered to indicate a deficiency, levels between 20 and 30 ng/mL are considered to indicate an insufficiency, levels between 30 and 100 ng/mL are considered to be in the "reference range" (with 40 to 60 ng/mL being "ideal," at least according to Dr. Holick), levels between 100 ng/mL and 150 are considered to be high, and levels above 150 ng/mL are considered to indicate vitamin D toxicity (Holick, 2010). However, considering that you were told that your vitamin D level should be at at least 50, I think that there's a good chance that your lab might have used a unit of measurement other than ng/mL. Using ng/mL, a vitamin D level of 50 would be right in the middle of Dr. Holick's "ideal" range, which is what I'm aiming for myself.
So, have you noticed any improvements that you might be able to attribute to vitamin D supplementation so far? I too have read that it can take several months (at least six, maybe up to a year) to get vitamin D levels into the normal range, and a lot of what I've read suggests that improvements in well being don't typically occur until the same amount of time has passed. That's not to say that nobody could experience a therapeutic response sooner, but I do think that generally it takes some time to get true results from vitamin D supplementation (both as far as getting up to an ideal level is concerned and as far as getting therapeutic benefits is concerned). And that makes me hope that I (and you) will respond in the long run, because if I don't, I can't help but think that I might be left with this feeling that I've wasted too much time chasing a response that I couldn't get. Still, though, supplementing with vitamin D is thought to have a range of potential health benefits, so even if supplementation doesn't help with my mental illness symptoms, maybe I'll be able to say that I've improved my overall health.
At any rate, this message is getting kind of long, so I'm going to wrap things up for now. I wish you luck with your vitamin D trial, and I'd of course like to encourage you to let us Psycho-Babble members know how you do with the vitamin as you go further into your trial.
Take care,
Tomatheus==
REFERENCE
Holick, M.F. (2010). "The Vitamin D Solution" . New York: Hudson Street Press.
Has schizophrenia with strong negative and cognitive symptoms
Taking Abilify, niacin, & vit. D3
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1061422
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20131226/msgs/1061655.html