I"ve really been laid up by the high humidity on my heart the last 3 weeks or so.

Posted , 17 users are following.

I saw my Doctor, the cardiologist - turned Integrative Medicine, Dr. Bailey this morning. Being dizzy from a mere 10 minutes standing outside just doesn't cut it!  I"m telling you all this for a bit of self-deprecating humor along with medical insights that might help you all too to remember. HA! 

He asked me why I hadn't been taking my vitamins the last 6 weeks - well it was summer, I just got out of the habit.... yeahyeaaahhhh.. and? 

Well yeah, of COURSE i was still taking the prescription diuretic and the prescription levothyroxin.   

"Well Nancy don't you think you might be feeling really run down because you dropped the Vitamin D3 etc?"       Holy moly... it hit me like a ton of bricks.... two things,

1. Vitamins regardless of not being prescription, are very VITAL to my health issues - two autoimmune situations and one heart condition. all three of which are aided by VITAMIN D3!! DUHHHHH.... 

2. the realization that we as a culture are so brainwashed by the pharmaceutical industry to think of vitamins as a nice "extra" ... when in fact they ARE the healing modality. they are a stand in for "food is your medicine" in these times of reduced minerals in agricultural soils. 

Dr. Bailey has sent for about 7 different blood tests and will let me know soon, but he is pretty sure my Vitamin D3 levels have dropped back down. It will be interesting to see what the difference is for me between feeling good and felling dragged down dizzy almost depressed is.  

one other things, he challenged me with the question about the LS - isn't that being affected by having stopped the vitamins? I told him no, that i felt under control.....BUT LADIES! i realized later that do have a slight twinge her an there recently... and I had been making the assumption that it was from having "cheated" with a candy bar and a bit of maple syrup in my breakfast oatmeal... OH GOSH! what IF? Bailey was proding me to question my assumptions! HA! 

BLess you all. we here in North Carolina have a category 4 hurricane comeing right at us in a couple days or so. and my dear daughter is right in the bull's eye... well a few hundred miles inland but... they are expecting massive flooding and outages even in Raleigh, NC. 

 

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  • Posted

    Nancy - I remember my mother's doctor saying all women should take vit D3 after menopause because we don't get enough from food or sun alone. I have upped my intake as a result of reading your nutrition thread as well.  Good luck with your health and the hurricane. 

  • Posted

    Nancy, I was thinking about you yesterday cause i was feeling down and depressed and I thought of you that you are always happy and upbeat and doing your gardening and I am over here not wanting to sew...Sweet Lady pls take care of yourself, you help me so much with the supplements and the Aloe/Turmeric oil . Stop playing around and take your vitamins .....I pray you and your daughter will be safe God Bless....Janie

     

  • Posted

    hi Nancy, I recently been diagnosed with B12 AND D3 deficient, and possibly also iron which I'm waiting results for. Anyway I was given high dose of prescription grade d3, on which I felt ok (not ok as in my problems were over, but ok as in no side effects) . after this high dose for 5 days I was told to go onto a lower dose OTC supplement of D3 (2200 IU), I took this with K2. I started getting muscle pains and aches in my body, my eyes started hurting, so I stopped with the D3 and am just on B12 now. I'm waiting to see my doc to let him know, but do you have any suggestions? also how long does it take for these vitamins to start actually making a difference to your system? 

    • Posted

      HI there OUt in space - ~ LOVE your acronym by the way. I love astronomy.   

      Well, yes I do have a suggestion. I"m not sure even my wonderful cardiologist integrative Doc knew about how vitamin A and D are complements of each other. If you read back in my articles you'll see that after a month of high dose D's we need to be sure to include the vitamin A in our supplements.  apparently they keep each other from becoming toxic! i.e. your muscle pains I suppose, but don't know for sure (I've not run across the symptoms of D overdose). 

      I'm guessing the noticeable improvement timeline will be different for everybody depending on their own level of INsufficiency to start.   But from the flipside of that question, I can hazard a guess as to my own experience of not feeling well... looking back in my notes, it took ONLY 3 weeks of not taking my supplements - ALL of them - before I started noticing NOT feeling well. 

    • Posted

      OH! to add to that comment OUTinSpace... You mentioned eyes that hurt - wowza - even more confirmation, to my mind,  that you are very deficient in Vita min A. So build up your retinol - not beta carotene - stores and you should be good to get back to a regular vitamin D and A supplement routine. Read up in my article on the ratio that is needed - I think it is anywhere between 1 to 3 D:A and higher.  so for instance I take D at 5,000IU and A at 15,000 IU.  You take A even higher I suppose. 
    • Posted

      Hi, firstly thank you for such a quick response, totally wasn't expecting that. Indeed astronomy does really fascinate me, A pale blue dot by carl sagan really sums things up well I think.

      ?Thank you for bringing vitamin A to my attention. (You have a sharp eye detail :D) I will totally look into your article, and at the same time will try and see if I can have my vitamin A levels tested. (not sure if this was checked as doctor didn't mention it ) I am really new to this vitamin stuff, and am learning that allot of vitamins do indeed complement each other. what's your opinion on vitamin injections instead of pill form? this is the first time I have been on any type of medication, taking all these pills so regular bothers me (physically and mentally), although I will indeed put my emotions aside and take them either way if they do indeed help. I am worried about how reversible vitamin deficiency induced damage is. I'm only in my mid 20's and am experiencing many issues at the hand of not being taken seriously by my previous docs, glad to say I now have a really good doctor who likes to find the cause of everything he finds, which is amazing.

      ?thank you

      ?

    • Posted

      Ahhh... yes I'm so glad to hear you finally fund a doc you can work with. Be sure to print him off my 17 page discovery of what it takes to manage an autoimmune issue and let him work from there. Just to be sure he knows that each item comes from a fellow MD or ND. 

      I don't know of any vitamins given by injection OTHER THAN Vitamin B12. I"ve had a couple frieds in my life who swear by B12 injections and couldn't live without them about every three months or so. depending... my guess is that A whole LOT of women especially, could use a good shot in the arse regularly IF we had more enlightened Docs/medical systems.  go for it.  

  • Posted

    Hi Nancy, I have not had the internet for a few days and so I am finally back online. 

    Sorry to hear that you have not been well.  Let me guess...You ran out of your vitamin D's, thought 'What the heck I will pick some up next time I'm out', and then before you knew it a month had passed! 

    I was taking a vitamin D dosage of 2000 iu a day and have upped it to 5000 iu a day as I can't really afford to get another autoimmune disease having four already.

    I hope you and your daughter are in a safe place as they are predicting that this is going to be a terrible storm

    Hugs Katie

    • Posted

      hahaha... how did you know, Katie! that's how it starts.... running out and falling out of the habit... 

      You all have been So CUTE!  I appreciate each one of you. I have giggled over this all morning and have just now ordered the vitamins I have been out of and WILL NOT - repeat - WILL NOT "forget" again. 

      Guess what? I just got a call from the nurse at Dr. Bailey's office who said everything looked fine. Ahem... one more "teaching moment" here if you don't mind. YA GOTTA ask for the actual numbers AND for a printed copy of your tests. 

      I asked her to read off just the D3 number and it was 37 ng/dl.  That is down from 57  just this April. I hadn't stopped taking them until a couple months ago about mid July.   Dr. Bailey was right, my D level has slid back down from not consistently taking the supplement.  So ! geesh! I lost 20 points in 2 months! 

      here's another thing I noted today.  I looked back and found that several years ago my D level was 43.. when I wasn't feeling so hot to trot.  and this 37 reading is when i haven't been felling all that great at all. SO, for me, I can't speak for others, my Vitamin D readings HAVE to be greater than 57 to feel well.  This DOES confirm an article or two that I've seen that mentions that good health is in the range of 60 to 80 and maybe even preferably 90. So that's my GOAL. smiles. 

       

    • Posted

      Hi Nancy, that does seem to confirm it for you.  

      It seems like vitamin D is the silent killer.  I think people take every vitamin but vitamin D because they believe that they will get all the vitamin D that they need from being outdoors!  

      Maybe now though people are more informed.

      I just checked and my vitamin D Levels are 49.2 and I was taking 2,000 iu when I had the test done.  Now I am taking 5,000 iu. of vitamin D and so I think I will have another test done in a couple of weeks time to see how it goes. 

  • Posted

    Hi all! I was having urine infection issues as usual. Okay nurses embarrassed me because it was E coli. I was asked...note I'm 63yrs young..."do you wipe from front to back". So infuriated. Plus I have fibro and it's buddy IBS. IBS when in fibro flare is like baby poop and can end up everywhere! Sorry but ugh! I am so aware of need for exceptional hygiene with LS. I rince after every bathroom trip, sex etc. Anyways I was introduced to a raw probiotic for vaginal care. Capsules said to contain 38 probiotic stains. Promotes healthy yeast balance, vaginal and urinary tract health. Doc has put me on a super strong antibiotic and sure enough the week after antibiotics the infection was back. No need to be tested as the urine smell is undeniable. So I started the probiotics I mentioned and the infection has gone away no need for the antibiotics no testing to pay for and no nurses making you feel like I'm filth. Hallelujah!

    • Posted

      I am 63 yrs young and have a “sensitive” bladder. Says the Urologist.   It has leaked for years and I am on medication for that. I get those infections. Where do you get the raw probiotics?  
    • Posted

      I live in California. I purchased my probiotic at Clark's Nutrition & Natural Foods. It is kept in refrigerated section. The maker is Garden of Life. A little pricy at $40 for a month supply. I'm hoping that I will not only have the benefit of less urine infections but see improvement with LS. Either way I'm happy!

    • Posted

      diana, I had a spate of UTI infections..four in the space of a year and then I took cranberry supplements (google it) and incredibly I've not had one since.  Most pharmacies have them I think.  

  • Posted

    Thanks. I have about that many infections also.   I am drinking cranberry juice  here lately and maybe that will help also.   There are not a lot of foods or drinks I can not drink and the cranberry I can.   I have diverticulitis, acid reflux and I have to watch my sugar the cranberry juice is sugar free.  Just some of the ailments I have and wished I hadn’t. Did not have these problems ten years ago. 

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