400,000 IU of vitamin D reduced adult pain and improved quality of life – March 2014

Vitamin D supplementation for diffuse musculoskeletal pain: Results of a before-and-after study.

Eur J Gen Pract. 2014 Mar;20(1):3-9. doi: 10.3109/13814788.2013.825769. Epub 2013 Sep 9.
Le Goaziou MF mf.legoaziou at medsyn.fr, Kellou N, Flori M, Perdrix C, Dupraz C, Bodier E, Souweine G.
Département de Médecine Générale, Faculté de Médecine Lyon-Est, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 , Lyon , France.

Background: Several studies have shown that vitamin D supplementation could be useful for treating diffuse musculoskeletal (DMS) pain in adults.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of correcting a vitamin D deficiency (≤ 50 nmol/l) on DMS pain and quality of life in adults.

Methods: A pragmatic prospective study was conducted in a general practice setting in the Rhone-Alps area between 1 February and 30 April 2009. Patients between the ages of 18 and 50 years old who consulted their general practitioner (GP) for DMS pain or chronic unexplained asthenia and had a deficient serum 25 (OH) D level with no signs of any other disease were enrolled in this study. The patients received high doses of vitamin D supplements (400 000 to 600 000 units). Mean pain evaluation scores were evaluated before and after vitamin D supplementation using mixed models and accounting for repeated measures.

Results: Before vitamin D supplementation, the adult study cohort (n = 49) had an adjusted mean serum 25 (OH) D level of 23.7 nmol/l, a mean pain evaluation score of 5.07 and a mean quality of life score of 3.55. After vitamin D supplementation, the adjusted mean serum 25 (OH) D level increased to 118.8 nmol/l (P < 0.001), the mean quality of life score increased to 2.8 nmol/l (P < 0.001) and the mean pain evaluation score decreased to 2.8 (P < 0.001). Conclusion: In this small before-and-after study, vitamin D supplementation decreased pain scores in adult patients with diffuse musculoskeletal pain and vitamin D deficiency. These results must be confirmed by further studies.

PMID: 24576123
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Previously published in French April 2013, which has the following conclusion
The correction of vitamin D deficiency resulted in a significant decrease in the level of pain intensity according to

• verbal rating scale (P=0.034) and the
• Digital Scale (P<0.001),
• consumption of analgesics (P=0.002) and
• discomfort in carrying out activities of daily living following: the shopping, cleaning,
• walking for more than a kilometer (P<0.001) and
• dressing (P=0.012)

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Summary by VitaminDWiki of adding 400,000 IU of vitamin D

	Before	After
Vitamin D level	10 ng	46 ng
Pain score	5.1	2.8
Quality of life	3.6	2.8 ?

Note: The abstract gives Quality of Life in units of nmol/liter, which is incorrect, and the number should be higher than 3.6
Cited in Google Scholar 36 times as of Dec 2020

Type of visual pain chart which might have been used - a change of 2 is significant

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