Normally rational PCP freaked over my Vit D level

Many PCP's are used to people having D levels that are at minimal levels.  Yes they're not used to seeing labs at the 80-90 that is generally considered OK for WLS post ops.  But this level is considered desireable in non WLS patients too. It's just that PCP's don't see the merit in levels above 50 or so.  DAVE

 Vitamin levels are kind of a dance. I've been doing a challenging dance since the beginning. I had renal failure and had to dance that in with the Rny stuff. Now I'm super kidney chick and it's a new dance. My D was 60 was time and the nephrologist wasn't too happy about it. I take it 2x week now..50,000.
You and I are are educated and committed and it's still very hard. It's hard to deal with doctors that don't know their  stuff and it's difficult to keep the levels right.
But I just keep dancing.
Deb T>

I really wish that when the number 80 is thrown out that it includes how it was measured. The Linus Pauling Institute does recommend a level of 80 nmol/L, which is equal to 32 ng/ml.

My lab measures in ng/ml. I freaked out when I got my first result of 40, because it wasn't 80. Then I researched it some more and found out about the difference in lab measurements. The lab says the range should be 30-100 ng/ml which almost lines up with the minimum outlined by the LPI.

I do supplement and my most recent lab was 67 ng/ml, which is more than fine.


From the LPI website:
Growing awareness that vitamin D insufficiency has serious health consequences beyond rickets and osteomalacia highlights the need for accurate assessment of vitamin D nutritional status. Although there is general agreement that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is the best indicator of vitamin D deficiency and sufficiency, the cutoff values have not been clearly defined (18). While laboratory reference ranges for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are often based on average values from populations of healthy individuals, recent research suggests that health-based cutoff values aimed at preventing secondary hyperparathyroidism and bone loss should be considerably higher. In general, serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D values less than 20-25 nmol/L (8-10 ng/mL) indicate severe deficiency associated with rickets and osteomalacia (16, 18). Although 50 nmol/L (20 ng/mL) has been suggested as the low end of the normal range (32), more recent research suggests that PTH levels (33, 34) and calcium absorption (35) are not optimized until serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels reach approximately 80 nmol/L (32 ng/mL). Thus, at least one vitamin D expert has argued that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D values less than 80 nmol/L should be considered deficient (17), while another suggests that a healthy serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D value is between 75 nmol/L and 125 nmol/L (30 ng/mL and 50 ng/mL) (36). With this latter cutoff value for insufficiency (i.e., 75 nmol/L or 30 ng/mL), it is estimated that one billion people in the world are currently vitamin D deficient (37). Data from supplementation studies indicate that vitamin D intakes of at least 800-1,000 IU/day are required by adults living in temperate latitudes to achieve serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels of at least 80 nmol/L (38,

Don't we also get Vitamin D from the sun?  Could that explain why even though your intake of supplemental Vitamin D was the same, the level rose from April-October, due to being outside with the summer weather?

Or, do we not absorb enough Vitamin D from the sun to make a difference of this significance?  Just throwing it out there...

Interesting thought.  my understanding is that we don't absorb a significant amount of Vit D from the sun unless we are out in the sun much of the day most days (as farmers are), but I have no definitive information on that.

Lora