Vitamin D Deficiency and Rheumatoid Arthritis

November 27, 2011 11:29 pm admin Medication, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Vitamin D

What – Vitamin d deficiency and rheumatoid arthritis – isn’t this a Meniere’s disease site… Okay, so at this point you know I’ve diverged from talking about Meniere’s disease as much and now focusing on Rheumatoid arthritis. why? Well, frankly it’s been more of an issue for me the last year or so than the Meniere’s has. I have been pursuing Rheumatoligist appointments in an effort to get part of my life back just like I had been pursing allergy and ent appointments…

Vitamin D Deficiency and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Well, for background I’ve taken traditional approaches to Rheumatoid Arthritis treatment. That is to say, prednasone, plaquenil, meloxicam, methotrexate. Really those seem to not have made much difference over the last two years. I was afraid that I was heading towards being in that statistical area of people who have to quit work within 5 years after diagnosis and try to find a way to live on 800-1200 a month disability.

At 38 years old with a wife and two young children that really is not an option. (As if it is for anyone…) So I’ve been desperately looking for solutions. The most promising so far is antibiotic treatments. Pioneered by Dr. Brown and now the standard bearer is a Dr. Mercola. Basically the premise is (as I mentioned in the last post) that a bacteria, mycoplasma is responsible. This makes sense to me since my initial symptoms started after an infection that resembled the flu. For almost 3 months now I have been on antibiotics and things seem to be going well.

However as the weather has turned I’ve been waiting to see how my symptoms go. They tend to be worse over the winter and why is a mystery but my rheumatologist seems to recognize this as a fact that so many people see worse symptoms in the winter months. Why?

I’ve spent a lot of time musing on this. The last week I’ve noticed my symptoms were worse. This week was Thanksgiving and it was so much better a Thanksgiving than the one two years ago. I felt ancient then. This was so much better, but my symptoms had started returning enough to make me aware that I was not cured yet.

The day after Thanksgiving we had our first fully sunny day in a short while and it dawned on me one potential reason for the seasonal variation in symptoms. I’ve given a lot of thought and there are few reasons why winter should make much of a difference for RA. I mean, let’s face it, most of us have central air or at least heating enough that we are in 65-75 degrees through the winter (same as summer). Sometimes the humidity is a bit lower indoors in the winter, but that shouldn’t be a problem. There must be something else. I can’t imagine that the air pressure is that much different in winter than summer.

The sun…. I remember a year or year and a half ago. It was winter and I felt awful. Everything hurt. I desperately wanted to get out into the sun even though it was 50-60 degrees out. Maybe there is something to that.

Some quick research on vitamin D is that there does seem to be some link between vitamin d deficiency and rheumatoid arthritis. Hm…. research was done showing that people in the northeast were more likely to show symptoms of Rheumatoid arthritis. Promising… Maybe there is a link.

I’ve read more and more and am putting it to the ultimate test. I did spend a couple days out in the sun in short pants. Froze too! But I’m not taking the chance that the suns angle is too low for vitamin d production. (Vitamin D is produced when UV-b hits the body.) In just 10-20 minutes exposure you can generate around 10000 units of vitamin d-3. I looked through my supplements and discovered that I’m getting around 400 IUs of vitamin d from my supplements. The RDA is around 600 it looks like and so I’ve gone out on a limb.

I’m taking supplements of Vitamin d-3 now. 10,000 IUs a day. I’ve taken them for 2 days now and am curious to see if my aches may improve even more. From what I’ve been able to read about vitamin d deficiency. The symptoms can develop gradually over time. (So it may take years of being vitamin d deficient before you will see symptoms.)

By the way it looks like toxicity to vitamin d-3 is in the range of above 40,000 ius per day. Vitamin D generation in the body is not something that would contribute to toxic levels (sun exposure for vitamin d self regulates.)

I’m also now wondering if vitamin d deficiency my not also have a link with meniere’s disease as well as with the Rheumatoid Arthritis. Wouldn’t that be a fantastic connection! I am reading that there are speculations of several auto immune diseases that are exacerbated by or brought on by vitamin d deficiency. I’ll check back in on my experiences over the next couple months and let you know how I fare through the winter!