Our Vitamin D3 saga

We realized we had forgotten to update friends on our Viamin D3 saga. 

Friends will recall we started weekly supplements of 60,000 IU in mid-sep’17 when our levels came out in tests to be 9 and 17 ng / ml respectively. After 10 weeks, on re-testing the levels were still 30 and 26 whereas the vitamin d council recommends 40-60 ng / ml. so we took a second 10 week weekly course of 60,000 IUs. Sadly, when we tested after this second course, the readings were 16 and 13 or some such ! Was it that levels are lower in winter (we tested in beginning march 2018) or was one of the co-factors was low (co-factor is a micro-nutrient without which vit d3 levels cannot be normal).

So we looked those up – magnesium, zinc, etc., and had them tested too, only for my husband this time. The levels were normal. The only co-factor we did not test for was vit k2 as the test for that was for 13,500 inr and that is low in most populations also. So we have started supplement for vit k2 even as we have begun our third vit. d3 weekly course !

All this enquiry was necessitated by my husband’s coughing having increased from a level of nil to about 30 %  (he suddenly started suffering from adult onset coughing asthma with no history of similar before) – he had to take more of the inhalers which he hardly needed in the preceding months when we thought vit d3 had fixed him. So lets see where we get to with our vitamin d3 story in future – we will test again after this course of 10 weeks is over.

We had started naturopathy for my husband's allergies in sep-17 side by side with vitamin d3. The protective effect even of a previous naturopathy regime had lasted 6 months – same as now. So now we were forced to think if the lack of cough had been naturopathy rather than vitamin d3 supplements. If it was naturopathy, we discussed if my husband should then take the 15 day treatment twice a year – after all it is just 2-3 hours a day of steam baths and such like – nothing intrusive. Well, the jury is still out on that.

For now, my husband makes sure he does not miss his daily home-made soup – two big bowls (recommended by the naturopaths), and tries to minimize ready made food like bread, biscuits and savouries, which seems to contribute to the cough. I would think his cough is down to 10 % now.