Hello,

I have not had my Vitamin D levels checked out, but seeing as i live in Scotland where there is hardly any sunshine and having a couple of melanoma moles removed and told to stay out of the sunshine whenever it is out, i thought i must have a Vitamin D deficiency?

I was using Swansons 1000IU capsules for a few months and felt no benefit so decided to upgrade to the 5000IU soft gels after reading some of the latest news regarding D3 intake.

I have only taken one 5000IU today but a few times through the day i have felt really dizzy, i don't know if this is because i am taking a higher doze or because i have just finished my 5th 12 hour nightshift and had a wee drink afterwards to chill out.

Is 5000IU a safe amount to take and maybe i am experiencing dizzyness because i never get any vitamin D at all?

Than's for reading.

I've never felt dizzy from it, even when I took 5,000 IUs. Sounds like you're probably just overworked, tired and maybe a bit dehydrated. Have you been drinking enough water? I take 2500 IUs of D3 per day, and for me it's a dose I feel good about.

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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanual Kant~

Hi kind2creatures, Thank's for the reply!

I have been doing these shifts for a while and never felt dizzy or lightheaded afterwards, i always drink plenty of mineral water.....i have also started taking Rhodiola Rosea root because my job is too stressful at the moment.

I will try them again tomorrow when i am off work and see how i get on.

Cheers.

Even though it was only one 5000IU, nothing's impossible as everyone's body chemisty is unique to them & you may already have your calcium levels maxed. Too much VitD can snowball into too much calcium which could snowball into blood toxicity if you ignore your symptoms & continue taking more VitD than you need over an extended amount of time.
It could be you were already filling your D void with the 1000IU, but you don't know for sure til you've had your blood tested.

VitD does have dizziness as one of its side effects so listen to your body

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If you look at the diagrams below of the uptake of 50,000iu of vitamin d, TEN TIMES the amount you've take you can see how long it takes for that to be processed by the body and become fully effective.


Vitamin D2 Is Much Less Effective than Vitamin D3 in Humans

It used to be the case that they used megadoses of 300,000iu every 6 months to keep children at a reasonable level to prevent Rickets so in relation to those kinds of intakes 5000iu is a trivial amount.

People who have a reasonably high cholesterol level (who aren't taking statins or cholesterol lowering) should be able to make 10,000~20,000iu of Vitamin D3 Cholecalciferol given NON BURNING midday sun exposure turning every 5 minutes so the total skin surface is regularly exposed 20minutes should be fine. The point is that 5000iu is NOT a high intake as far as your DNA is concerned. Naturally your body is set to cope with much higher amounts of the same stuff.

It's possible there is some digestive issue with the carrier oil although most oil based capsules are so small the amount of oil they contain is so small it's hard to see how that could give rise to problems. Do bear in mind that placebo and nocebo effects occur with all oral medications and medical interventions. Mind does have a real impact over how your body responds.

You may want to try piercing the capsule and massaging the contents into the skin surface. Vitamin d is made very near the skin surface and so this is the natural route for vitamin d absorption and it would avoid any gastric distress. A further alternative would be simply to chew/bite the capsule and hold the contents in the oral cavity and spitting out the capsule shell. Some people find sprays under the tongue are more effective.

City Assays �20 blood Spot Test will tell you if you are vitamin d replete. However the levels they suggest are not accepted as sensible by the Vitamin d experts. In practice Bone mineral density generally requires levels around 40ng/ml to ensure most people maximise calcium uptake thats' 100nmol/l
The maximum anti inflammatory benefit from vitamin d occurs around 50ng/ml = 125nmol/l and if you think human milk should be a complete vitamin d replete food for human babies then you'd need 60ng/ml or 150nmol/l.
The reason the original humans settling at the latitude of the UK survived is because that had paler skins that enabled the storage of vitamin d3. The half life of vitamin d once in your plasma is about 27 days.
Imagine you could only earn money during the summer.
And then understand your bank savings halved every 3/4 weeks.
You can see that to go from September through the March and still have sufficient savings to deal with any emergency you'd need to build up a huge capital by the end of summer. Which is why paler skinned humans living near naked outdoor lives are set to make more vitamin d daily than they bodies actually use daily. However as your supply of vitamin d capsule is substituting for daily full body sun exposure you don't need to store D3 or build up a huge capital surplus to last through the winter. You just need sufficient to keep level adequate to deal with inflammation.

Do remember that the amounts required by people who live in the USA are generally less than those in Scotland because there is less vitamin d from sunshine available in Scotland the USA also have more Vitamin d fortified foods than UK/EU.

Also remember that UVA (sunlight through glass/car windows) degrades vitamin d in the skin or near the skin surface so if you do massage the vitamin d capsule contents into your skin it would be best done on some skin that usually covered by clothing (protected from uva exposure.)

Thanks for the information everyone

Cheers.