When do I Vitamin D test after loading?

by Dawn
(Sunny USA)

My Vitamin D level was 24 ng/mL 8 weeks ago and my doctor prescribed Vitamin D 50,000 IU once per week for 8 weeks. Tomorrow I take the last pill and I'm wondering when do I take the test? The same day? Wait a day? Wait a week? My primary goal is to get an accurate reading for my health, but...

This is further complicated because I'm one of those lucky Americans who will soon be paying for individual health insurance when my current group plan coverage terminates in 4 days and now with my Vitamin D low I will have to get a higher cost plan for a "pre-existing condition".

I'd like to take the test asap to see if my Vitamin D number is back to the normal range so that I can work to get a lower cost plan asap. Good news is my doctor ordered the Vit. D test as part of other routine blood tests she told me she ordered and the lower number was discovered before I had any symptoms.

Comments for When do I Vitamin D test after loading?

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Vitamin D Levels after Loading Dose
by: Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Queen

Hi Dawn,

If you have insurance right now, then go for it and get your Vitamin D Level checked, especially if having your Vitamin D Level a little bit higher will decrease your health insurance costs.

It really doesn't matter that much when you get your test done because you have been taking Vitamin D for 2 months anyway, so all of the other Vitamin D that you will have been taking will be (hopefully) working to get your level up.

But don't be surprised if it is not as high as you might think, 50,000 IU's per week is really not much above most researchers recommended maintenance dose of 3500 to 5000 IU's per day.

Also, even though your insurance company will be looking at the lowest number of 30 ng/ml as 'normal', researchers consider 30 ng/ml to be 'insufficient' and are recommending higher levels- on the order of 50 to 80 ng/ml.

Some even claim that if everyone's levels could be increased to these numbers that it would prevent 75% of breast and colon cancer!!

If a drug could prevent 75% of two of the most pervasive cancers on earth, then every doctor would be handing it out to every patient that walked through their door. But because Vitamin D is so common and boring to talk about, no one gets excited about this REMARKABLE vitamin/hormone!

But I do, and I hope that you will too. Get your Level rechecked and get on a maintenance dose high enough to get your levels to 50-80 ng/ml!

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

Timing of Vit D testing important?
by: Dawn

Kerri,
Thanks for your quick response.

Okay, I took the last of the 8 pills late last night and I took the blood test early this morning.

From what you and the doctor seem to indicate it doesn't matter when I take the test, so I'm lead to believe that the way Vit. D metabolizes and gets into my blood is slow enough that taking the test so soon after taking the pill won't make my results skew to the high side. I certainly don't want to feel falsely optomistic that my Vit D levels are improving only because I just took a superdose right before the test.

I would think that even if my numbers are in the "normal" range then I should continue with a supplement (maybe not superdose, but higher than RDA) and then test again after a few weeks to be sure I am maintaining a normal level. Would you agree?

I'll let you know how it goes!
Thanks,
Dawn

Hi Dawn:
by: Diane

I would be really interested in learning how you made out with the Vit. D bloodtest. You have the same levels and my Dr. prescribed the same dose of vit D. Can you let me know if it helped and how much you are taking now?
Thanks!

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