WED/RLS is not always the culprit

[ViewsAskew]

I always have a hard time separating symptoms of WED/RLS from other issues in my life. I've reached the point where I've perimenopause and WED.

So, when I'm depressed, is it tired of being tired? Is it perimenopause? Is it "plain" ole vanilla depression? Side effects of the meds?

Recently things were the worst they've been in a very long time. I went to a new gynecologist and wasn't hopeful we'd tease out anything. She did blood tests and they all came back in the normal range except one: Vitamin D.

The low end is 30, recently raised from 25. Many people believe that it's only when you get to 50 that it's high enough. Mine was 8. Turns out that's in the range of causing rickets.

I've had this horrible bone pain all winter. I can hardly move sometimes. Along with the depression, it's been very bleak.

When I got the news from her office, along with instructions to take 5000 IUs a day (and a specific kind of D3, but can't remember which at the moment), I did a bit of research and immediately started sitting in the sun between 1 and 2 (about the time I often get up) for just 10 minutes - no sunscreen, in tank top and shorts.

Within 3 weeks, the pain is reduced tremendously. I started laughing again, the depression started to life. The every day bad days are now mostly OK days. Sunlight also boosts serotonin, along with adding up to 10,000 IUs of D in just 7-10 minutes (10am to 2 pm) in Chicago for someone on the fair side. The darker the skin, the longer the exposure needed, the closer to the equator, the shorter the time needed.

Apparently about 85 to 90 percent of us are deficient - I suppose all of us should be having an annual test.

I often attribute just about every symptom I have to the WED/RLS and the side effects of the drugs. Thankfully this time it wasn't the case and there was an easy fix. Now, if the sun would only shine a bit more often in rainy Chicago this summer!

[Polar Bear]

Excellent that this is working for you.

What about one of these light boxes?

[ViewsAskew]

That's an idea. Many people do use tanning booths for this purpose, apparently.

[badnights]

That's fantastic Ann! Thanks for sharing it. I have had people scare me off the 4000 IU I've been taking all winter, but when I cut back to 2000, my WED/RLS symptoms got worse and stayed worse until I went back up to 4000.

That's when I looked back through my doctor-visit notes and found one from way back at the beginning of my WED problems. I was taking much less D at the time, I forget - maybe not even 1000, and she wanted to check if that was too much. I have no numbers, just notes that she said I was bordeline low so I should keep taking it. And I never thought about it again until a couple of months ago! Now I take 4000 religiuosly along with my iron. I was thinking I might need to cut back for the summer, but since I'm not working outside this summer (long miserable story) I think I'll leave well enough alone. I'm at a pretty high latitude.

I'd heard of the connection with depression before, and also that D is involved in building or maintaining the myelin sheath around the axons of nerve cells, so the WED connection might have something to do with that. Although it's incredibly sad that you lost so much time over the winter, and very scary to think of what the deficiency it must have been doing to you, I think it's fanstastic that such serious problems were dealt with so simply once you knew what the deal was!

[Andreadrea]

I just found out about a week ago that my Vitamin D level is 9! My doctor put me on a once-weekly megadose of D, which I'll take for 12 weeks. I'm wondering if raising my vitamin D will help my WED. Raising my ferritin certainly helped!

[ViewsAskew]

I just found out about a week ago that my Vitamin D level is 9! My doctor put me on a once-weekly megadose of D, which I'll take for 12 weeks. I'm wondering if raising my vitamin D will help my WED. Raising my ferritin certainly helped!

My SIL did the weekly megadose. She had to go through 2-3 cycles of it before she got it up significantly - hers was about 20 when she started.

I don't know if it will help the WED/RLS, but I'm sure glad it's helping the mood and pain issues.

[Rubyslipper]

I have never had my Vitamin D checked but about 3 years ago I felt like my body was just trying to shut down. It literally felt like parts were shutting down and I could place one foot in front of the other.

My doctor did a thyroid test (I had one done a year or two earlier) and then I went out of town for vacation. When we got back I had three urgent messages from the doctor saying to call her ASAP. Apparently my levels were so far off I should have been comatose! I have that under control now and it is much better but I can tell when it gets out of line.

So yes, I do think sometimes we need to be aware of other factors and not blame everything on WED/RLS! So glad you are doing better!

[SquirmingSusan]

I take the 50,000 IU dose once a week or so, and it has done wonders for me. My RLS used to be so painful, but a couple years ago when I got my D level tested, and then started taking the vitamin D, the pain went away. I also have one of those Sperti lights that you stand in front of for 10 minutes or so, a couple times a week. It's like a tanning light, an super bright so you have to wear eye protection. Tanning can work too, but it has to be a specific kind of tanning light.

BTW, I take the mega doses because of gastric bypass. I don't absorb vitamins normally. "Normal" people would only take the high dose D for a limited time period.

Ann, that's great that upping your vitamin D has helped you so much!

[Chipmunk]

I also noticed my WED symptoms abating after a couple weeks on the D2 megadose. I mentioned it to my sleep doctor and she said I was the second person in as many days to ask about a possible link between WED/RLS and low Vit D. She said if she had someone ask about it the next day she was going to start a study.

I take my daily dose at night (so as to not cancel out the iron regimen) with a calcium pill and fish oil pill. Vitamin D is fat soluble so is best taken with a high-fat meal, and also is best absorbed with calcium. That means I should take it with Ben & Jerry, right?

[ViewsAskew]

That means I should take it with Ben & Jerry, right?

Good point!!!!

[badnights]

oh gee I've been doing it wrong. I take my iron at night on an empty stomach right before bed with 250 mg C to aid absorption, which is all good, but I also take the D at the same time. I guess I should move it to morning and take it with .... what ?? I don't eat much fatty foods.

Aargh! do I have to add a fish oil pill and burp fish all morning?

I stopped taking Ca because - - well, probably because I hate pills and have a hard time swallowing them, but I told myself it was because I have a kidney stone lol. So it's recommended to take D with Ca and fats?

[Rubyslipper]

Our local health food store has a wonderful fish oil that comes in three different flavors--lemon pie, pina colada and another one I can't remember. It is in liquid form and will not cause you to burp. Check it out at a store near you but also check the ingredients. I haven't tried it yet because I have a big bottle of fish oil pills to finish off first.

[badnights]

Low Vitamin D: A Contributor to Mental Disorders in Children?
Medscape Medical News from:
The American Psychiatric Association's 2011 Annual Meeting

June 2, 2011 (Honolulu, Hawaii) — Children with severe mental health disorders, including psychosis, have twice the rate of vitamin D insufficiency as mentally healthy children, new research suggests.
...
"That is 50% more than children in a normal population, so based on our findings this means that 1 out of 5 kids with severe mental illness has low vitamin D levels," principal investigator Keith Cheng, MD, told Medscape Medical News.

"The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (43%) was most common in children with psychotic disorders compared to other mental health disorders," said first study author Mini Zhang, MA.

Vitamin D insufficiency is associated with a range of adverse medical outcomes, most commonly endocrine function and bone health, but more recently has also been linked to a variety of other medical conditions, including gastrointestinal disorders, asthma, cancer, and diabetes, added Ms. Zhang.

Furthermore, she said, recent research has linked low vitamin D levels to the development of psychiatric disorders, including depressive symptoms, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

In addition, there is a controversial hypothesis by researcher John Cannell, MD, who heads The Vitamin D Council, a nonprofit educational group, that vitamin D deficiency is linked to autism.

...

"So there are various studies that show some correlation between [low] vitamin D and mental illnesses, but the data out there are not consistent enough, or the evidence is not strong enough, for us to draw definitive conclusions. Our research was an attempt to try and fill in a piece of this puzzle and perhaps prompt future studies that will examine this relationship further," Ms. Zhang told Medscape Medical News.

...

"We're still not entirely certain of the role vitamin D plays in brain function and development, but we do know there are vitamin D receptor sites in various brain cells. We don't know exactly what happens when those receptor sites aren't active, but we do know they are there and that they are there for a reason," Dr. Cheng added.
...
"Defining what constitutes vitamin D deficiency was one of the very challenging parts of this study and others. There is controversy about this all over the place. Some studies say 15 [ng/mL], some say 20, some say 30, some say 32. There really needs to be a standardized cutoff level," said Ms. Zhang.

"What we are recommending right now is just to follow the AAP and the Institute of Medicine cutoff value, which uses 20 ng/mL," said Dr. Cheng.
...
Dr. Cheng acknowledged that the retrospective nature of the study is a major limitation and added that he hopes to conduct prospective research into this issue in a study that compares vitamin D levels in psychiatric outpatients, inpatients, and healthy controls.

[Chipmunk]

I wonder if the Vit D deficiency is both a symptom and a cause/exacerbator, akin to iron deficiency with us? I.e., they use up Vit D more quickly than normal, which then worsens the mental health condition. The implication would be that Vit D supplementation would improve symptoms but likely not alleviate them completely, like iron supplements do for WED/RLS.

As far as fishy burps go, if you put the fish oil capsules in the freezer, it almost takes care of them completely.

[badnights]

interesting thought.

re freezer, good trick!