Sleep disorders cured by 60-80 ng of vitamin D and some B vitamins – March 2013

We make 20,000 IU of vitamin D on our skin in 1-6 hours in a bathing suit, middle of the day middle of the summer.
Time needed to accomplish this is related to skin color.
1,000 IU/day is clearly not going to replace this.
There are two types of doses :
- 1) Repleating dose ( going from 15 ng/ml to 65 ng/ml ) and
- 2) Maintenance dose (staying at 65ng/ml)
The one time dose to go from 18 to 60 is much higher than the maintenance dose.
Repleating dose is 10-20K/day for 4-6 weeks depending on the first measured level and, what month it’s measured in, and how long it’s been that low.

Summer dose is zero to 10,000 and different for each person based on where they live, how much they go outside and how fast they make it, ie skin color.
Dark skinned people make it slower, they are made for very high sun environment and use melanin in their skin to block D formation so they don’t get too high.
We know that darker skinned people have more sleep disorders, this is why.
Each person needs to learn their own winter dose and summer dose that keeps them 60-80 ng/ml.

Surprisingly, once my patients wake up strong, happy and pain free for several months they can often tell by the way they feel that their level isn’t right.
When they feel worse they decrease or increase by half of their dose.
If, within a day or so, they’re feeling good again it usually means they went the right way.
Always insist on numbers to support these moves in the first to second year. After that they may not need to be done as often.
All insurances will do four vitamin D levels per year with the ICD 9 of 268.9; vitamin D deficiency. All of your patients make that diagnosis so don’t be afraid to use it.

D hormone has other cofactors that are necessary for its action in each cell, so I always give a multivitamin.
B12 helps the sleep and should be >500. If it’s below 500 I supplement with 1000 mcg per day for several years.
D has receptors in the parietal cells of the stomach that make acid and intrinsic factor so B12 deficiency is usually a secondary deficiency to D deficiency and what we’ve been taught about “pernicious anemia” is actually wrong, once you replace the D as well as the B12 the anemia usually corrects.
Anemia of “chronic disease” always has a low D level in the background, and in my experience usually corrects with the proper vitamin D replacement, 60-80 ng/ml.
All the cells of the bone marrow, including red cells and platelets have vitamin D receptors on their surface.

Leg cramps or worsening headaches may suggest magnesium is low, give sunflower or pumpkin seeds as a magnesium source daily or take magnesium gluconate 500 mg/day. (not oxide) send them to www.vitamindcouncil.org. for any questions.
If D causes diarrhea (1/50 of my patients) put the D on the skin instead of orally for a while or try the powdered form instead of D dissolved in oil. Or carefully use a tanning bed.
Be careful of giving supplemental D to people who are not sick. They may not need it and if it gets too high it will goof up their sleep.
If they feel worse immediately lower the dose.

Why are some of my daily headache sufferers developing burning in their hands and feet?
Why don’t all of the patients who came to see me for burning in the hands and feet get completely better with D?
Why do some vitamin D deficient patients have pain and some do not?
Why are some people cured of pain using D and some not?
Why haven’t the irritable bowel symptoms gone away even though the reflux has?
Why aren’t my patients losing weight at the rate that they gained it when they became D deficient?
Why are some of my patients still not sleeping normally with everything I know of in range?
What is it that their brain still wants to sleep normally?

See also VitaminDWiki