Look­ing for more input on how you can man­age back pain or chronic pain?  I’ll get right to the point – con­sider your vitamin-D levels.

Four Facts About Vit­a­min D for Pain

FACT 1: Many peo­ple in the US are vitamin-D defi­cient or have bor­der­line levels

Per­haps half of the adults in the US have blood lev­els of vit­a­min D that are sub-optimal, if not down­right deficient.

Tech­ni­cally, a blood level of 25 (OH)D (that’s the chem­i­cal sym­bol for the major cir­cu­lat­ing form of the vit­a­min) below 30 ng/mL would be con­sid­ered bor­der­line, with any­thing below 20 ng/mL con­sid­ered “D-ficient.”

FACT 2: Low lev­els of vit­a­min D have been cor­re­lated with back pain (and other mus­cle aches and pains too)

Numer­ous sur­veys of patients with back pain and chronic pain have turned up the fact that low vit­a­min D lev­els are more likely to occur in peo­ple with back pain or other forms of chronic mus­cu­loskele­tal pain.

We don’t know the exact rea­sons why vit­a­min D defi­ciency cor­re­lates with back pain.  That’s because the role of vit­a­min D in the body is quite com­plex and the vit­a­min plays a part in many inter­nal chem­i­cal processes.

In fact, most phys­i­ol­o­gists now would pre­fer to rename vit­a­min D and call it a hor­mone (or a pre-hormone) rather than a vit­a­min.  But it’s too late for that — we’re stuck with the name “vit­a­min”- D.

One spe­cific role of vit­a­min D we know about is its role in cal­cium absorp­tion.  It’s not only good for your back pain, it can also help you main­tain bone mass.

FACT 3: Pro­vid­ing patients with vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments can often reverse back pain

Here’s one exam­ple.  In a study of 360 women with pain, vit­a­min D ther­apy reduced symp­toms in 96%.

There are other sim­i­lar research stud­ies, too.

FACT4: Sup­ple­men­ta­tion with extra vit­a­min D for pain is safe

Vit­a­min D is stored in your fat cells and you can’t get rid of it in your urine.  So doc­tors were afraid that with heavy-duty sup­ple­men­ta­tion, vit­a­min D lev­els could rise too high.

That’s hypo­thet­i­cally pos­si­ble.  But the gen­eral level of alarm about over­do­ing vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments has qui­eted con­sid­er­ably.  Very few cases of vit­a­min D tox­i­c­ity are ever reported.

On the other hand, don’t go nuts with the vit­a­min bot­tle.  Rea­son­able Vit­a­min D sup­ple­men­ta­tion is often a good thing.  But twice as much of a good thing isn’t twice as good.

What You Should Do Now

You have two choices.

1. The first is to see your doc­tor and have your vit­a­min D lev­els checked.  Then base your strat­egy on what the blood tests show.
2. A sec­ond strat­egy might also make sense.  You can just start tak­ing a rea­son­able dose of vit­a­min D and see if your symp­toms improve.  Don’t be impa­tient though.  Vit­a­min sup­ple­ments don’t usu­ally cre­ate a dra­matic bang right off the bat.  You’ll have to stick with it for a month or two before you eval­u­ate your results.

If I decide to take a vit­a­min D sup­ple­ment with­out hav­ing my blood lev­els tested first, how much is safe to take?

If you’re known to be defi­cient, many doc­tors rec­om­mend a daily dose of up to 10,000 IU (Inter­na­tional Units) of vit­a­min D.   Once the blood lev­els rise to an accept­able level, the plan is to switch to per­haps 2,000 units per day for long-term maintenance.

So if you want to try vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments with­out hav­ing your blood tested first, one rea­son­able approach is to try a sup­ple­ment of 2,000 IU daily.  It would be unusual to accu­mu­late too much tis­sue vit­a­min D with this approach.

It might take quite a while for you to see results, par­tic­u­larly if your sys­tem was sig­nif­i­cantly depleted of vit­a­min D to begin with.  If you’re impa­tient to see results, per­haps you should try choice #1 and see your doctor.

What type of vit­a­min D sup­ple­ment should I take?

There are two forms of vit­a­min D com­monly found in our diet – D2 (ergo­cal­cif­erol) and D3 (chole­cal­cif­erol).  D3 is the type of vit­a­min D your body man­u­fac­tures when you expose your skin to sunlight.

Though it’s hard to prove that such fine-tuning is impor­tant, many health author­i­ties rec­om­mend that you use a sup­ple­ment con­tain­ing the vit­a­min in the D3 form, since the body processes it into the active form of the vit­a­min more efficiently.

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Deepen Your Body of Knowledge

Exten­sive med­ical sum­mary of the cur­rent state of our vit­a­min D knowledge

Nutri­tion sup­ple­ments vs. phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for low back pain

Vit­a­min D2 vs D3