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I wish the Vitamin D science was more nailed down. I am currently taking 7000 UI daily, because medic told me to do so, thing is... even the same medic, someti

I wish the Vitamin D science was more nailed down. I am currently taking 7000 UI daily, because medic told me to do so, thing is... even the same medic, sometimes told me to take another dose, because he forgot I was already taking it, when I told him what I was taking, his reply was... "huh... that I think is about right". My experience with other medics weren't better. Also some were AGAINST me taking Vitamin D, because 7000 UI is viewed by many medics as toxic, but I have hypothyroidism, and one of its issues is that some people show vitamin D deficiency symptons even with correct blood serum levels (and the symptons go away only after forcing the levels go higher than normal), telling that to medics also resulted in mixed results, some said they would read more, some got mad at me, some agreed with me.

kungito 6y ago
How many medics did you go to and why so many?
- gruez 6y ago
  probably english isn't his first language and he meant "doctor".
- speeder 6y ago
  One reason for frequent switches was switching of health insurance. The other reason was that diagnosing my hypothyroidism was super hard, there are a ridiculous amounts of shitty quality endocrinologists out there, including many doing things that they shouldn't (like abusing ADHD meds for weight loss to the point the government had to step in and ban several ADHD meds, to the detriment of actual ADHD sufferers)
teach 6y ago
Remember that the average medical doctor does not take even ONE human nutrition course as part of their undergraduate or med school studies. They clearly have enough background to understand the complexities of human nutrition, but most haven't studied it at all or kept up with the research. It's like asking an ophthalmologist about bladder cancer -- they just don't know. Consider speaking to a registered dietitian, who actually are trained in this area.
- monadic2 6y ago
  Also—I just found this out a month ago—a "nutritionist" is not the same thing as a dietitian, which is licensed. I had assumed these were one and the same.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    "Dietitian is like dentist while nutritionist is like tootheologist." --Dara Ó Briain
- mark-r 6y ago
  Also remember: What do you call a person who graduated in the bottom half of their medical class? Doctor.
  - bgroat 6y ago
    That applies to the bottom of the class too. C's get degrees, etc, etc. It's dangerous, because it can come off as 'anti-science' but this is why I'm skeptical of many experts. Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. I know dozens of devs who I wouldn't let push to prod (not just because pushing to prod is bad), and they make 6-figures. There must be correspondingly bad doctors
    - pdbwimsey 6y ago
      > Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. None? Passing the PE exam is no joke. An engineering degree only counts as four years (half) of the experience required to take the test. Maybe software devs should have something similar? Then when someone calls themself an engineer (or your own word, don't use ours) you know they meet a minimum level of competency and experience.
    - mark-r 6y ago
      Yeah, I probably botched the exact wording - "at the bottom" would have been stronger. It's been a very long time since I've heard that one. I once worked with a guy who had gotten his MD in a different country. Didn't have any luck getting work when he moved back to the US, and I can understand why - I wouldn't trust him to cut my toenail based on his competence in his new profession.
neuronic 6y ago
I have hypothyroidism as well. If you take 7000 IU it might take years for you to slowly develop vitaminosis. Get your blood checked regularly to keep track. Vitamin D is fat-soluable and not flushed out by the kidneys. It sticks in the body fat and therefore accumulates. Bodily regulation typically happens before synthesis after sunlight exposure but if you take already-complete vitamin D, a hormone, then no regulation can keep a check anymore as you have effectivly bypassed it. 7000 IU might be fine for a while but I'd definitely keep track of the values and if there is medical evidence that higher is necessary for hypothyroidism, keep kidneys and other values in check.
- nextos 6y ago
  I'd also add that taking vitamin D cofactors is essential. Just look up any chemical database like Kegg or Reactome. Vitamin D reactions tend to consume magnesium, boron, etc. Supplementing those is very important, both for effectiveness and long-term safety. I know some multiple sclerosis patients that are taking megadoses, under medical supervision. Doctors have learned that cofactors are crucial to avoid nasty side effects.
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> I have hypothyroidism as well. Have you tried taking Iodine?
  - speeder 6y ago
    In my case Iodine caused it. I have Hashimoto's Disease. Thing is, many people with genes for it never develop the disease, or develop it only later in their life... I started showing symptons when I was 14. Completely by coincidence I found out it was the government's fault, a lot of people, me included, developed the disease suddenly, at same time, and what happened at that time was that the government increased mandatory iodine levels in the salt, it caused an explosion of hypothyroidism cases, they then scaled it back and new cases returned to the average. Problem is that people that had the disease triggered by Iodine never come back to normal no matter what.
alien_ 6y ago
As per Wikipedia the overdose threshold for adults can be up to 50k/day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Excess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Excess As an anecdote, about half a year ago my sister-in-law's 4 year old found some vitamin D pills and ingested what was left in the pack, in total around 60k IU, hours before anyone noticed. The doctor said to just avoid giving him any other Vitamin D for the next few months and it should have no consequences. Luckily it was just Vitamin D, pretty much any other pills she had would have probably been deadly at such a high dose.
- LinuxBender 6y ago
  I am currently at 52k per day. It took me a few years to get up to that level.
  - gojomo 6y ago
    Are you saying you've ramped up to taking 52000IU of Vitamin D per day over several years? That seems excessive; what motivated that choice, and are you monitoring (including with blood testing) for negative side-effects?
    - LinuxBender 6y ago
      I replied to a similar thread [1] about the details. I get labwork done as often as insurance covers it, but they don't actually test enough of the right things in my opinion. Eventually I will have my own lab equipment so I can do more extensive tests than what labs can do. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774
      - joecool1029 6y ago
        With such an amount taken daily, do you show extremely high 25-hydroxy serum levels or do they remain in the normal range? I read your earlier comments and opinion on testing it, just curious.
      - 6y ago
e9 6y ago
Everyone is unique and until we know more about genetics there will not be rules that will "nail it down for everyone" anytime soon until. A good example is coffee. You can find articles that say coffee is good and just as many articles saying coffee is bad. The answer is: - If you have gene that will metabolize caffeine fast then you reap health benefits of antioxidants in the coffee and it's good for you - If you don't have gene that metabolizes caffeine fast then caffeine will linger in your system and cause all sorts of problems and therefore coffee is bad for you At this age there is no other option except for testing and seeing what works on you and maybe see what your parents did.
- nradov 6y ago
  Even that oversimplifies the issue. Antioxidants aren't necessarily good for you. They have both positive and negative effects. For athletes they can potentially inhibit training adaptations. Caffeine is proven to slightly enhance endurance sports performance.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Even with better genetics testing we're in the "check what works" territory due to different diets, lifestyles and existing buildup of different substances. Although that's probably more important for vit D than the coffee example.
jjtheblunt 6y ago
Curiously, my wife was a paramedic in Chicago, trauma cases galore, and the term "medic" means very different things in different contexts, with huge differences in training and required and tested skills.
hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
Medic???
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
If you’re taking 7000IU/day on top of your normal dietary intake, please spend the money on a Vitamin D blood test every 6-12 months. You’re almost certainly taking too much for the long-term. Vitamin D accumulates over time and the half-life is measured in weeks. You may not be overdosing right away, but you can slowly end up in an overdose condition after months or years. It can take weeks or months to reverse. High dose Vitamin D is only helpful for short-term use to bring levels up into the desired range. After that, you need to switch to a more reasonable maintenance dose like 2000-3000IU. Even the most vocal pro-Vitamin D advocates aren’t taking as much as you are. Your hypothyroidism isn’t an excuse to take more. You need to adjust the thyroid issues through thyroid medication, not attempt to micromanage downstream vitamin issues with overdoses. If you still don’t believe me, please just get a blood test every 6-12 months for Vitamin D and calcium levels. The long-term effects of chronic overdose could be worse than whatever symptoms you were trying to address in the first place.
- speeder 6y ago
  I already take regular blood tests (because thyroid issues). Often I push the medics to let me get more tests than they want (where I live private blood testing is not a normal thing, you need doctor permission), this is how I got diagnosed in first place (I forced a doctor to give me a test for antibodies of Hashimoto's Disease, and it was indeed positive). I regularly test Vitamin D, TSH, T4, Cholesterol, Sugar, and when doctors agree to it, some minerals (Zinc for example). Since I also have ADHD and take Ritalin, I need to be careful, because my meds reinforce each other and can cause issues.
Schinken_ 6y ago
What were your symptoms and how are you feeling now? I do have hypothyroidism too, and my Vitamin D levels are always low. The first time I got checked (about 3 years ago) my Doctor was impressed with the result, it was unquantifiable. It was waaaay to low. I got 20k/Weekly for 8 weeks and was back in the normal range. A few weeks without Vitamin D supplement later and I'm very low on Vitamin D again. So more Vitamin D supplements. I'm not taking it regularly yet, but I can feel the difference. Number one must be not being as tired, number two is sort of like... more content? I just feel better and healthier and a lot calmer. If there is an actual link between hypothyroidism and vitamin d levels I would be interested in other stories.
mhkool 6y ago
I have nodules in my thyroid and as part of the treatment, 3 different doctors prescribed 10,000 IU per day to get the D3 level at 80 ng/ml. For the past 5 years the nodules are stable.

kungito 6y ago

How many medics did you go to and why so many?

gruez 6y ago
probably english isn't his first language and he meant "doctor".
speeder 6y ago
One reason for frequent switches was switching of health insurance. The other reason was that diagnosing my hypothyroidism was super hard, there are a ridiculous amounts of shitty quality endocrinologists out there, including many doing things that they shouldn't (like abusing ADHD meds for weight loss to the point the government had to step in and ban several ADHD meds, to the detriment of actual ADHD sufferers)

teach 6y ago

Remember that the average medical doctor does not take even ONE human nutrition course as part of their undergraduate or med school studies. They clearly have enough background to understand the complexities of human nutrition, but most haven't studied it at all or kept up with the research. It's like asking an ophthalmologist about bladder cancer -- they just don't know. Consider speaking to a registered dietitian, who actually are trained in this area.

monadic2 6y ago
Also—I just found this out a month ago—a "nutritionist" is not the same thing as a dietitian, which is licensed. I had assumed these were one and the same.
- bitwize 6y ago
  "Dietitian is like dentist while nutritionist is like tootheologist." --Dara Ó Briain
mark-r 6y ago
Also remember: What do you call a person who graduated in the bottom half of their medical class? Doctor.
- bgroat 6y ago
  That applies to the bottom of the class too. C's get degrees, etc, etc. It's dangerous, because it can come off as 'anti-science' but this is why I'm skeptical of many experts. Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. I know dozens of devs who I wouldn't let push to prod (not just because pushing to prod is bad), and they make 6-figures. There must be correspondingly bad doctors
  - pdbwimsey 6y ago
    > Just think about how many shitty engineers you know. None? Passing the PE exam is no joke. An engineering degree only counts as four years (half) of the experience required to take the test. Maybe software devs should have something similar? Then when someone calls themself an engineer (or your own word, don't use ours) you know they meet a minimum level of competency and experience.
  - mark-r 6y ago
    Yeah, I probably botched the exact wording - "at the bottom" would have been stronger. It's been a very long time since I've heard that one. I once worked with a guy who had gotten his MD in a different country. Didn't have any luck getting work when he moved back to the US, and I can understand why - I wouldn't trust him to cut my toenail based on his competence in his new profession.

neuronic 6y ago

I have hypothyroidism as well. If you take 7000 IU it might take years for you to slowly develop vitaminosis. Get your blood checked regularly to keep track. Vitamin D is fat-soluable and not flushed out by the kidneys. It sticks in the body fat and therefore accumulates. Bodily regulation typically happens before synthesis after sunlight exposure but if you take already-complete vitamin D, a hormone, then no regulation can keep a check anymore as you have effectivly bypassed it. 7000 IU might be fine for a while but I'd definitely keep track of the values and if there is medical evidence that higher is necessary for hypothyroidism, keep kidneys and other values in check.

nextos 6y ago
I'd also add that taking vitamin D cofactors is essential. Just look up any chemical database like Kegg or Reactome. Vitamin D reactions tend to consume magnesium, boron, etc. Supplementing those is very important, both for effectiveness and long-term safety. I know some multiple sclerosis patients that are taking megadoses, under medical supervision. Doctors have learned that cofactors are crucial to avoid nasty side effects.
phkahler 6y ago
>> I have hypothyroidism as well. Have you tried taking Iodine?
- speeder 6y ago
  In my case Iodine caused it. I have Hashimoto's Disease. Thing is, many people with genes for it never develop the disease, or develop it only later in their life... I started showing symptons when I was 14. Completely by coincidence I found out it was the government's fault, a lot of people, me included, developed the disease suddenly, at same time, and what happened at that time was that the government increased mandatory iodine levels in the salt, it caused an explosion of hypothyroidism cases, they then scaled it back and new cases returned to the average. Problem is that people that had the disease triggered by Iodine never come back to normal no matter what.

alien_ 6y ago

As per Wikipedia the overdose threshold for adults can be up to 50k/day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Excess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Excess As an anecdote, about half a year ago my sister-in-law's 4 year old found some vitamin D pills and ingested what was left in the pack, in total around 60k IU, hours before anyone noticed. The doctor said to just avoid giving him any other Vitamin D for the next few months and it should have no consequences. Luckily it was just Vitamin D, pretty much any other pills she had would have probably been deadly at such a high dose.

LinuxBender 6y ago
I am currently at 52k per day. It took me a few years to get up to that level.
- gojomo 6y ago
  Are you saying you've ramped up to taking 52000IU of Vitamin D per day over several years? That seems excessive; what motivated that choice, and are you monitoring (including with blood testing) for negative side-effects?
  - LinuxBender 6y ago
    I replied to a similar thread [1] about the details. I get labwork done as often as insurance covers it, but they don't actually test enough of the right things in my opinion. Eventually I will have my own lab equipment so I can do more extensive tests than what labs can do. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774
    - joecool1029 6y ago
      With such an amount taken daily, do you show extremely high 25-hydroxy serum levels or do they remain in the normal range? I read your earlier comments and opinion on testing it, just curious.
    - 6y ago

e9 6y ago

Everyone is unique and until we know more about genetics there will not be rules that will "nail it down for everyone" anytime soon until. A good example is coffee. You can find articles that say coffee is good and just as many articles saying coffee is bad. The answer is: - If you have gene that will metabolize caffeine fast then you reap health benefits of antioxidants in the coffee and it's good for you - If you don't have gene that metabolizes caffeine fast then caffeine will linger in your system and cause all sorts of problems and therefore coffee is bad for you At this age there is no other option except for testing and seeing what works on you and maybe see what your parents did.

nradov 6y ago
Even that oversimplifies the issue. Antioxidants aren't necessarily good for you. They have both positive and negative effects. For athletes they can potentially inhibit training adaptations. Caffeine is proven to slightly enhance endurance sports performance.
viraptor 6y ago
Even with better genetics testing we're in the "check what works" territory due to different diets, lifestyles and existing buildup of different substances. Although that's probably more important for vit D than the coffee example.

jjtheblunt 6y ago

Curiously, my wife was a paramedic in Chicago, trauma cases galore, and the term "medic" means very different things in different contexts, with huge differences in training and required and tested skills.

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago

Medic???

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

If you’re taking 7000IU/day on top of your normal dietary intake, please spend the money on a Vitamin D blood test every 6-12 months. You’re almost certainly taking too much for the long-term. Vitamin D accumulates over time and the half-life is measured in weeks. You may not be overdosing right away, but you can slowly end up in an overdose condition after months or years. It can take weeks or months to reverse. High dose Vitamin D is only helpful for short-term use to bring levels up into the desired range. After that, you need to switch to a more reasonable maintenance dose like 2000-3000IU. Even the most vocal pro-Vitamin D advocates aren’t taking as much as you are. Your hypothyroidism isn’t an excuse to take more. You need to adjust the thyroid issues through thyroid medication, not attempt to micromanage downstream vitamin issues with overdoses. If you still don’t believe me, please just get a blood test every 6-12 months for Vitamin D and calcium levels. The long-term effects of chronic overdose could be worse than whatever symptoms you were trying to address in the first place.

speeder 6y ago
I already take regular blood tests (because thyroid issues). Often I push the medics to let me get more tests than they want (where I live private blood testing is not a normal thing, you need doctor permission), this is how I got diagnosed in first place (I forced a doctor to give me a test for antibodies of Hashimoto's Disease, and it was indeed positive). I regularly test Vitamin D, TSH, T4, Cholesterol, Sugar, and when doctors agree to it, some minerals (Zinc for example). Since I also have ADHD and take Ritalin, I need to be careful, because my meds reinforce each other and can cause issues.

Schinken_ 6y ago

What were your symptoms and how are you feeling now? I do have hypothyroidism too, and my Vitamin D levels are always low. The first time I got checked (about 3 years ago) my Doctor was impressed with the result, it was unquantifiable. It was waaaay to low. I got 20k/Weekly for 8 weeks and was back in the normal range. A few weeks without Vitamin D supplement later and I'm very low on Vitamin D again. So more Vitamin D supplements. I'm not taking it regularly yet, but I can feel the difference. Number one must be not being as tired, number two is sort of like... more content? I just feel better and healthier and a lot calmer. If there is an actual link between hypothyroidism and vitamin d levels I would be interested in other stories.

mhkool 6y ago

I have nodules in my thyroid and as part of the treatment, 3 different doctors prescribed 10,000 IU per day to get the D3 level at 80 ng/ml. For the past 5 years the nodules are stable.