Menopause and Vitamin D by: Kerri Knox, RN-The Immune Health Queen!
Hi Deb,
So, I think that I hear you asking if your MENOPAUSE was a trigger for Vitamin D deficiency since your Vitamin D deficiency was discovered AFTER your menopause.
But menopause has nothing to do with 'triggering' vitamin D deficiency and your vitamin D deficiency has likely been there for many years, but no one had looked for it until you began having problems.
For one thing, you live in the UK, you get ZERO vitamin D for 6 months out of the year, you are a woman, and women tend to wear sunscreen on their faces more than men do- blocking any vitamin D that might be made on your face in the summer.
So unless you have been taking vitamin D supplements on the order of 2000 IU's or more per day OR you have a passion for pickled herring, then I'm betting that your vitamin D deficiency has been there for years if not decades- they just happened to FIND it now, but that does not mean that it has not BEEN there all along!
As a test, I would love it if you went around to all of your friends and family and got them ALL tested for vitamin D deficiency. It's likely that between 85% to 100% of your friends and family are going to be vitamin D deficient- young or old- even the teenagers and kids will likely be deficient. It's an epidemic.
Having said that, I really think that treating your vitamin D levels and getting it up into the middle range of normal will probably help your body pains to a significant degree.
So, please make sure that you get aggressive treatment to bring your levels up.
Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen Functional Medicine Practitioner Easy Immune Health.com
Vit D - More information by: Deb
Hi there,
I've read your reply thanks and would like to respond if you don't mind. See what you think.
My oestrogen hormones were wiped out during surgery and problems began since then. I feel I've aged 20 years in a few months and I know there is a connection. All the pain and muscle weakness has only come on since surgery with no prior symptoms. Recent tests show everything to be normal except vit. D and oestrogen/FSH.
As a dance and fitness teacher of years I was fit, active and outside more than the average right up until surgery. I would have noticed any problems because I trained athletically and had to have high energy levels and a tough body. At the time of surgery I was walking miles everyday and going to the gym 3 times a week (pain free.) I live in one of the sunniest parts of the UK. Is it right that vit D only needs daylight?
At the time of surgery I demanded a bone scan (NHS are very tight on tests) which showed my bones were much younger than me:) Very healthy because of fitness.
My GP said that a surgical menopause causes a hormonal chain reaction and as Vitamin D has some hormone status I include that. The sudden menopause has triggered these problems.
Osteoporosis can become an issue in menopause and calcium is assisted by the D's so it makes sense to me that there is a connection? So I'm thinking that as the hormones change, vit. D drops and could be the cause of pain, fatigue and muscle weakness in menopause, remaining undiagnosed by uninformed doctors.
The rheumatologist said so little is understood of the menopause (I guess if men suffered the research would be well established:) He said some women suffer with chronic pain at this time and doctors just don't know why. I put it to my GP that low vit. D causes pain etc and he just shrugged, saying he doesn't understand why I'd be vit. D deficient.
As surgery turned out to be unnecessary all this could have been avoided which is very distressing.
Any more comments would be very welcome because I'm open to learning more and putting a case to my GP in order to get treated.
Thanks, Deb
Extra by: Deb
I forgot to say that I NEVER use sun screen.
It's a fallacy that we don't get sunshine in the winter, we have many lovely sunny days, even when it's cold.
But I ask again, doesn't daylight alone produce Vit. D?
I read that a good few months of summer sun is enough to last the whole of the most dismal winter. We've had a glorious summer, it hasn't rained for nearly 3 months. In fact everyone is hoping for a down pour to water the gardens:)
Thanks again, Deb
Sunshine and Vitamin D by: Kerri Knox, RN-The Immune Health Queen!
Hi again Deb,
Whether you get SUNSHINE in the UK in the winter is not the issue, it is whether you are above 37 degrees latitude. I just looked up the latitude for Dover, which is one of the more southerly towns in the UK and it is 51 degrees latitude, so therefore you can get SUN, but you will NOT get vitamin d from October through March.
This is because the sun is too far away from you and the UV rays that make Vitamin D get filtered through the atmosphere. So while being in the sun in the winter is a GREAT idea because it produces corticotropin releasing hormone and probably some other substances that have yet to be identified, you will NOT get any vitamin D!
The other part of your question, about getting enough sun in the summer to last through winter, that would likely be true if you were a lifeguard, exposing 90% of your skin to the sun for hours a day, but the average office worker (or dancer) generally doesn't spend hours in a bathing suit in the sun.
And the fact that you ARE vitamin D deficient answers your own question- you obviously are not getting enough sun to produce the amount of vitamin D that you need.
There is nothing WRONG with you, we just evolved in southerly areas running around mostly naked all day in the sun. Those who DID evolve in the North, like the Inuit, eat HUGE amounts of vitamin D rich fish to make up for lack of sunlight.
Also, our modern habit of bathing almost every day actually washes off the oils that are required to absorb vitamin D into your bloodstream. So even if you DO go on vacation in Spain for a week and lay around in a bikini for hours a day, if you are like most people you will take a shower after getting back from the beach. And voila, you just washed off all of the oils would have converted the sunlight into vitamin D.
There was even a study done in Hawaii that tested young healthy people who exposed their skin to sunlight an average of 12 hours per week and did NOT wear sunscreen- and THEY were vitamin D deficient as well. The study called Low Vitamin D Status despite Abundant Sun Exposure is here.
So, the VAST majority of us really need to be taking Vitamin D3 Supplements in order to meet our needs.
Hope this helped.
Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen Functional Medicine Practitioner Easy Immune Health.com
Whoops! by: Kerri Knox, RN-The Immune Health Queen!
I didn't read the first part of your post before I responded. So I didn't address the menopause issue as well.
So, I still do NOT think that the menopause triggered your vitamin D deficiency. I DO believe that the pain COULD very well be from your vitamin D deficiency, however. Why did you all of a sudden get pain from it if you have had it for years? Who knows, but there could be a couple of theories.
First of all, I'm betting that as you started having these problems, you were out in the sun much less. AND, your vitamin D deficiency could have been marginally deficient for many years, then it simply dropped below whatever 'threshold' was required to make you have pain.
Also, when you go through a stress, like surgery, you use up magnesium. Magnesium is required to convert vitamin D from sunlight into the active form in your blood. If you became magnesium deficient (which won't show up on a blood test- not even a magnesium blood test which is completely inaccurate for finding magnesium deficiency), you may have not been able to convert vitamin D from the sun into vitamin D that you can use.
Also, when you are under stress, your digestive tract becomes inflamed and you can't absorb nutrients as well, so you may simply not be absorbing vitamin D as well as you normally do.
But if your GP can't figure out why you are vitamin D deficient, it's not because there is something wrong, it's because he doesn't read the literature.
EVERYONE is vitamin D deficient, such as young people in Hawaii- so therefore it's almost 100% likely that a menopausal woman in the UK who doesn't take supplements is GOING to be vitamin D deficient. In fact, you can print out this Ebook from a UK Vitamin D Researcher named Oliver Gilley who believes that the massive amount of chronic health problems in Scotland are directly related to vitamin D deficiency.
It's from the book Scotland's Health Deficit, an Explanation and a Plan. It explains why Vitamin D deficiency is rampant in the UK and why many of the diseases that people are experiencing are because of lack of vitamin D.
Print these out and give them to your doctor who 'can't understand why you are vitamin D deficient'. And if you sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right column, you can download an entire scientifically 'peer reviewed' Ebook written by vitamin D researchers talking about all of the research that has been done on Vitamin D deficiency and pain. And it is substantial.
Good luck,
Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen Functional Medicine Practitioner Easy Immune Health.com
Coincidence or result of? by: Susan
I am menopausal, and have had no problems with this. Then I went to the doctor for routine checkup and preventive tests. She ordered blood work, including the Vitamin D test, which came back at 8, calcium level good, did bone density, osteopenia. I have no pain, aches, no depression or lack of energy. She prescribed both Oscal, like 50,000 iu time release 1x a week, and a prescription Vitamin D. I like to do one thing at a time, so I know the effects.
I started with the oscal, and after a couple of days had severe constipation like never before, I had no problems with regularity before this, stopped taking it! I tried the prescription D next, like 400iu daily with food, same problem after a few days!stopped taking that, went to Mother Earth, thought taking liquid form D3 would be better, 2000 iu's in one drop, made from lanolin, same problem, and to top it off, started having major hot flashes which I never had before, have also been drinking organic fat free milk with D3, or o.j. with D3 everyday, and organic yogurt everyday.
It seems strange to me that I did not have a problem with major hot flashes til I got into all this D3 stuff. Coincidence or result of? When I took the blood test, I had been fasting about 16 hours, wonder if that made a difference too. I'd like to do another test to confirm, does it have to be fasting and why? My next plan is to try cod liver oil gel caps 400iu's daily, Nature Made.and when it gets warmer, just get outside for 20 minutes of sun the natural way to avoid all this!
Please see by: Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Queen!
Hi Susan,
Again, you were almost certainly vitamin D deficient for years or decades before you went into menopause, it's just that no one ever tested you prior to then. If you go back through your medical records, I'll bet that there are one of two things in there about vitamin D:
1) Nothing. No prior tests 2) Tests that were low and your doctor did nothing about it.
Please see my pages on Magnesium and Vitamin D. You are likely right on the verge of magnesium deficiency and the vitamin d is pushing you over the edge creating your constipation and possibly the hot flashes.
Before you go taking cod liver oil, be sure to read my page on Cod Liver Oil Information. Cod liver oil is not a significant source of Vitamin D, and will almost certainly not help with either bringing up your vitamin D levels nor help with your constipation.
PS: If you found this website helpful, please consider using the Easy Immune Health Product Store the next time you purchase your supplements online. Your support allows me to keep this site running and educating as many people as possible. Thank you!
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