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d2 or d3?

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teddymack
teddymack

So after a wild goose chase of trying to naturally cure my depression, fatigue, and pains for about 10 months I have recently went to my GP and got my blood work done. my blood results for everything (cholesterol, sugar, b12, iron/ferritin, testosterone, potassium, and others) my results came back good except for my vitamin d was a level 32 and my neck is misaligned probably due to poor posture. so my GP recommended i go to the chirppractor for my neck and prescribed me a muscle relaxant called methocarbomal (which i do not intend on using i'm instead opting for magnesium and cbd for pain relief) and prescibed me a weekly dose at 50,000 units of vitamin D2 and the goal is to get my levels up from my current 32 to around the 50 range.

However the past few months i have been taking a 2000 (sometimes 4000) IU supplement of D3 ai get from my local CVS and take it along side a glass of almond milk and have seen some improvement in my depression and pain. But i've been reading into vitamin D deficienies and it seems like the consensus is D3 is the way to go because D2 is synthetic and isnt really that absorbable by the body and that 50k of D2 is about as effective as  7k of D3. 

With this in mind I have been considering not taking the D2 and just upping my daily D3 dose to 5000 IU per day so my question is does this seem like a good idea and could i possibly take a larger dose to get my levels up faster? 

0 likes, 2 replies

2 Replies

  • EileenH
    EileenH teddymack

    Posted

    If you are in the UK I doubt the GP really gave you D2, if he did write it it was probably a mistake. - D3 is the norm for all supplements and I'm not even sure you get D2 any more. The high dose supplements from the pharmacy are probably Dekristol  - cholecalciferol, which is D3.

    The normal recommendation is for 3x20,000 IU per week for 8 weeks and retest - either as a single 60,000 IU dose or as 1x20,000 IU on 3 days of the week. 

    However you decide to do it, about 60,000 IU is probably as much as you should take per week and you should keep an eye on your total dose - i.e. if you decide to buy your own and take 35,000 IU per week then get the level checked after 3 months or so as you approach the same total dose.

    But if you want information about prescribed vit D you should ask the pharmacist - not rely on information from the internet which may not apply to the formulation you are going to be taking. 

     

  • lini38837
    lini38837 teddymack

    Posted

    Hi teddymack, I was vit d deficient 2 years ago(level8) and i was given loading doses of d3 by my GP for 10 weeks. I continue to take supplements of vit d3 each day 5000iu. I think d3 is a better option, all vit d is fat soluble,so is stored by body. My approach to recovery has been to sit in sun in summer months each day for 15mins at noon and supplement especially from Oct- May. I live in uk.

    A myriad of symptoms which were undiagnosed for 5 years led to my new gp finding that my vit d levies were so low. Since 2015 I have fully recovered. It feels like a miracle to be so well aged 60!

     

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