For those of you who have been reading the blog recently, you'll know that I have been feeling under the weather for WEEKS now. In the last couple of weeks it has been even worse with me feeling absolutely cabbage (tired, vegetative) when I get home from school. I cook dinner and that's me done for the night.
I finally got back my blood tests from the doctors, expecting it to perhaps reflect a deficiency of Vit B12 as it has in the past. To my surprise, I found I was very low on Vitamin D - the sunshine vitamin! A common ailment in this age of sunscreen and SPF. To put it in perspective, the range of normal is 50-150 with a recommended level of around 80. My grand score?
33.
Hearing this, SB and I went on the search for information on foods that would boost my Vit D levels. Were they foods I liked?
Fail - we found four things that contained good levels of Vitamin D. Eggs (don't eat), mushroom (don't eat), offal (ewwwwww) and fatty fishes. Guess it's a lot of tuna and salmon for me! In all seriousness though, we knew we needed to come up with a better solution than just taking the colcalciferol that the doctor had given me.
Reading through information that my cousin (a nurse) had sent me, my deficiency would also account for not only fatigue but also my struggle to lose weight (low Vitamin D causes insulin resistance) and my propensity to get colds, especially in winter. Reading further, I have decided to take a Vitamin D3 1000 iU(the type recommended most highly) supplement daily to see if this helps me improve my health.
Moral of the story: If there is something wrong with you... tell somebody. I feel so much better knowing there is a solution and that I don't have to feel like this. We can't always rely on our diet and lifestyle to provide us with everything we need and getting the right information is important! Be well Scribblettes
It must be such a relief to know how to make yourself better, it sounds like you've been having a tough time. Get better soon!
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