Your Symtoms are all explainable... by: Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Queen!
Hi Charity,
I'm so sorry to hear about what you are going through, but there ARE answers and you and your mom can feel better if you are motivated to take action.
It is EXTREMELY unlikely that your doctor is going to give you any answers- and I have no recommendations for tests for you to ask him because any of the laboratory tests for what I am going to tell you about will only confuse you because they will all be NORMAL- and you'll think that I'm crazy.
So, it's better to simply NOT test for these things and to try them out and see if they help you. But first, while your symptoms all seem random, they look completely explainable to me!!
It makes no difference if you actually HAVE fibromyalgia or not, the CAUSES of your symptoms are the same.
So, your symptoms:
Pain, exhaustion and depression are CLASSIC vitamin d deficiency symptoms. So, it's not that vitamin d didn't work for you or wasn't the right answer- your doctor just didn't do it right. 4 weeks of treatment then nothing for 2 months is NOT how you treat vitamin d deficiency.
You need to go read my Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency page and you'll see that he should have treated you for AT LEAST 8 weeks, then retested immediately and put you on another 8 weeks of treatment. He also used Prescription Vitamin D which you should NOT take- instead you should take Vitamin D3 Supplements instead of prescription.
Then, make sure that you read the Vitamin D Absorption page so that you make sure that you are taking your vitamin d with something fatty and with magnesium so that it gets absorbed AND converted into its active form.
Then, once your level is in the optimal Vitamin D Level range- and not the 'normal' range on your lab sheet, you need to
Next.... (continued below)
Vitamin D and Fibromyalgia symptoms continued.. by: Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Queen!
At NO POINT should you STOP taking vitamin d because your doctor thinks you've had 'enough' or your level is 'good'. You need vitamin d for the rest of your life!!!
OK, so I suggest that you actually download my Vitamin D Fact Sheet so you have all of this information in one spot- and send it around to everyone you know, especially your mom.
With all of those symptoms, your doctor SHOULD have tested you for Celiac Disease already. If he hasn't, you can ASK if you want, but make sure that you read the Diagnosing Gluten Allergy page before you do. Because you really need to understand that if the testing comes back negative, then that does NOT mean that you won't benefit from a gluten free diet- although that is exactly what your doctor will tell you.
It simply means that it is EXTREMELY likely that you have Non Celiac Gluten Intolerance. And gluten problems run in families, so it's VERY likely that your mom has it too since she has such severe symptoms.
Next symptoms- Kidney Stones. Along with your other symptoms, having kidney stones is major Sign of Magnesium Deficiency. But PLEASE don't bother asking your doctor for a magnesium level- instead, read my Magnesium Level page to see why your level will have nothing to do with whether you can benefit from taking magnesium or not.
Charity, these are only a sampling of the nutrient deficiencies and other problems that are likely to be going on with you. You and your mom CAN get better, but not if you continue to have the same diet and lifestyle that you do now.
So, what do you want to do?
Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune System Queen Functional Medicine Practitioner Immune System
Low vitamin D may be your body's natural defense against parathyroid problems by: Jennifer
Have you been tested for parathyroid problems?
The parathyroid glands help regulate how much vitamin D your body absorbs. Sometimes, your body will turn off vitamin D absorption in an attempt to protect your body from calcium overdose.
"Calcium overdose" in this case doesn't mean that you are eating too much calcium. Actually, it means that your body is sucking the calcium out of your very bones and dumping it into your bloodstream. Why?
You see, vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium. And since your body is already swamped in calcium, a regulatory system goes, "Yipe! Turn off vitamin D absorption, quick! We have to get rid of all this calcium before it causes a stroke and we lose our jobs."
Usually what's going on is that one of your four parathyroid glands has gone haywire (in the form of a tumor) and turned the calcium dial up to 110%. The only way to solve this problem is to cut out the parathyroid gland in question--drugs won't help and vitamin D supplements will only make things worse. You see, adding more vitamin D will *increase* calcium absorption--the very thing your body is trying to avoid.
So, sometimes vitamin D deficiency is a good thing. It's your body's natural way of protecting you from dangerous levels of calcium.
Symptoms of parathyroid disorder include: exhaustion (#1 symptom), depression, bone pain, insomnia, GERD/acid reflux, kidney stones, headaches, heart palpitations & atrial fibrillation, high liver function tests and more.
Doctors often recommend supplements for low vitamin D without understanding what might have caused the "deficiency" in the first place. Before you begin ingesting huge amount of vitamin D, be sure to check the parathyroid first. Otherwise, you might be defeating your body's natural defense mechanism and making yourself even sicker.
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