Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group I KICKED AS!!! vit D deficiency is the best clue

if this means being out in the sun then I do this for about 2 days aweek mowing and cleaning my land.. it dont make me feel better it dont make me feel worse either..even tho I get baked when Im outside guess being outside all day long with no shirt and just wearing shorts will do that...altho my even if my pain levels dont change in all that sun but my additude changes I am happier and my depression goes away for awhile .........oak

I am older then I look and I feel older than I am

Hi Oak

Hope you find the root cause of your AS and beat it.
Interesting observation w.r.t depression. You might be interested in the following:

July 28, 2004: The Vitamin D Council: Dr. Reinhold Vieth and his colleagues at the University of Toronto have given hope to millions of people across the world who are suffering from the debilitating symptoms of depression.

In a paper published this week, Vieth and co-workers showed that vitamin D significantly improves mood and helps relieve the symptoms of depression in patients with vitamin D levels most doctors would mistakenly consider to be normal.
...

(My website: Lack of exposure to sunlight(UVB?) is the root cause of my ankylosing
spondylitis. Sunlight burnt my ankylosing spondylitis. Sunlight can be
deadly and can cause skin cancer, sun stroke etc.,. Safe limits are different
for different people. If you are vit D deficient, don't ignore it!)

Krishna, I've been quite interested in Vitamin D since reading an article in the Toronto Star about it on the same day that I saw a piece about in on Canada AM. The findings are quite stunning. I'm glad to see they worked for you. I am now considering adding mega doses of Vitamin D to my daily pill mixture.

By the way, here are a couple of articles I pulled off the Canada AM website.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1073941299779_45
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1073950956520_185/

Hugs,
Kath

Kat


"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."- Thomas Edison

Hi Kath,

Thanks for those articles.

Couple of thoughts:

1. You might want to get your vit D levels, 25(OH)D and 1,25(OH)D, checked before starting supplementation. Reason: Vit D is a fat-soluble vitamin and excess can be quite toxic. Pls see spondylitis.org:Vitamin D in autoimmune diseases.

2. Like I said earlier, large doses of vit D supplements did not help me at all. No decrease in AS symptoms. Only sunlight helped me recover completely.

Hope you find the root cause of your AS and recover completely.

Regards.,
Krishna

(My website:Lack of exposure to sunlight(UVB?) is the root cause of my ankylosing
spondylitis. Sunlight burnt my ankylosing spondylitis. Sunlight can be
deadly and can cause skin cancer, sun stroke etc.,. Safe limits are different
for different people. If you are vit D deficient, don't ignore it!)

Edited by krishna on 08/09/04 06:59 PM (server time).

Hi there, yes, I had already decided to get one of my docs to have me tested for Vitamin D the next time I'm in. In the meantime, I'm making sure to have at least 15 minutes unprotected in the sun every day we have it (which doesn't seem to be much this year).

Thanks for the link. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Hugs,
Kath

Kat


"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."- Thomas Edison

Hi Krishna, I've tried your link and it isn't working. So, I went to the spondy website and can't find the article you've linked. Can we try again? Thanks.

Kath

Kat


"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."- Thomas Edison

Hi Kath,
The following are the urls I was taking about:

spondylitis.org vit d thread: http://bbs.spondylitis.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001735

Dr. Mercola: Test Values and Treatment for Vitamin D Deficiency: http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/23/vitamin_d_deficiency.htm

My website: http://spondylitis.homestead.com/files/index.htm

Pls let me know if there are any problems accessing the web sites.

Regards,
Krishna

(My website:Lack of exposure to sunlight(UVB?) is the root cause of my ankylosing
spondylitis. Sunlight burnt my ankylosing spondylitis. Sunlight can be
deadly and can cause skin cancer, sun stroke etc.,. Safe limits are different for different people. If you are vit D deficient, don't ignore it!)

Thanks Krishna. The links worked fine and I have new reading material.

Question: Considering you are from India and, now, California, how could you possibly have not been getting enough sunlight?

Hugs,

Kat


"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."- Thomas Edison

Hi Kath,

You are right there is plenty of sunlight in California and in S.India. The bad thing was my lifestyle. Unintentionally(unknowingly) I avoided sunlight UVB ( typically 10AM-2PM) due to *always* busy office work (sometimes during weekends as well). Also I need more sunlight as my skin type is 4 (brown) compared to a person of skin type < 4. Add to that when I get pain, I do exercise indoors, but not outdoors. I was in the mode for about say 9 years! When I measured 25(OH)D it was 8 ng/mL (severe vit D deficiency) . Now I changed my lifestyle for good.

Another thing I found: I surveyed several of my relatives in India w/ arthritis/spondylitis kind of problems. They avoid sunlight. This was not true a couple of generations ago. And more interesting fact is a couple of generations ago, there were no arthritis/spondylitis issues, for atleast 2 previous generations. Also we were/are lifetime vegetarians for several centuries. So, only sunlight is the source of vit D.

Lesson for vegetatians: Learn safe and effective exposure to sunlight.

Regards,
Krishna

(My website:Lack of exposure to sunlight(UVB?) is the root cause of my ankylosing
spondylitis. Sunlight burnt my ankylosing spondylitis. Sunlight can be
deadly and can cause skin cancer, sun stroke etc.,. Safe limits are different
for different people. If you are vit D deficient, don't ignore it!)

Ah, I thought it might be something like that.

I just came back from lunch, 40 minutes spent in partial and full sun, stretched out on the grass, reading my book. Lovely.

Although the meds I'm on caution against direct sun exposure and I've been very good about wearing hats and sunscreen of at least 30spf all summer, I must admit that I do always try to go unprotected for a while each week.

I'm so glad this worked for you Krishna and sincerely hope it works for others as well.

The guy in Vancouver about whom one of the articles I found last year was written took supplements instead of direct sunlight, so I guess, like AS, it's different for all of us.

Hugs,

Kat


"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."- Thomas Edison