This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

hey loobie, cholecalciferol is D3. it's ergocalciferol you don't want, that one's D2. you've got the right stuff!

Ian & others,
In Oz we can get Life Extension Vitamin D3 imported from the US. It is in 1000iu & 5000iu caps. I 'd presume it would also be available to you in the UK.
Regards,
Phil.

In Australia, Blackmores (brand name) also do a 1000IU D3 which is available from chemists or the supermarket.

Thanks Legs,

I am taking the correct stuff and didn't even know it!

Hi all
I'm another D3 convert and have been taking it for a while now. looking back on it my main exacerbations were all around particularly after my two preganancies. I wondered why this was. There is a lot written about why preganancy should act as a trigger and my own conclusions were two fold- hormonal changes and depletion of Vitamin D for baby bone making. I try to eat healthily and follow most of the guidelines laid down in the Best Bet diet which involves no dairy- most peoples primary source of Vit D. Consequently, with ms and entering into my 40's with the spectre of oesteoporosis also looming, I felt a supplement was important. I live in London and am taking something called readily available here called "Calcichew D3 Forte". The recommended dose is 2 tablets daily each containing 1250mg calcium carbonate equivalent to 500mg calcium and 400iu colecalciferol. Like Bromley I wonder about increasing this dose but am wary due to risk of kidney stones particularly as my fluid intake is probably not as high as it should be. I feel the ms makes me go to the lavatory (sorry folks!) enough as it is!! Of course guys get ms too and they dont do the preganancy thing altho as we all know ms is more prevalent in women.
Muu

hey loobie no probs

heya muu i agree with the whole idea of pregnancy possibly being a drain. i kind of always wondered about how the third trimester could be a relief from symptoms for some, and then post partum cause a bit of a relapse. i sort of thought maybe in the first months of pregnancy the body is drained and goes downhill, then maybe the extra care and supplementation recommended during pregnancy might actually kick in for the mom by the third trimester, and then when she has the baby she gets a double whammy - no more pregnancy vitamins (i have no idea what postpartum vitamins are recommended) and on top of that losing nutrition through lactation.

i also have a friend who suffered from serious post partum depression, and her husband has ankylosing spondylistis - i recommended the big doses of vitamin d and they report big improvements. they took 1200mg per day plus a multi which probably has the good ol' 400IU. hmm now that i read that i'm thinking what the heck does 1200 mg D3 mean... don't have time to figure out if she meant 1200 iu but either way it seems to be doing them some good!

I don’t know if vit D has much to do with MS, but I live in Spain, just inear the coast and i use to spend 3 or 4 months (holidays) going to the beach, and I have MS. Do not forget that one of the highest ratios in the world is Sardinia, and they are plenty of sun (winter and summer). If it has any incidence I don’t think is very important.

will restate here that "ms" is probably not something you can apply across the board statements to. it is just a convenient heading for "a bunch of somewhat similar things wrong with these people that we don't really get".

i don't think any study has claimed that D3 helped everyone unequivocably, but the percentages are so good that it may have benefit for a bigger percentage of patients than some other ideas.

there are probably other factors working in combination to contribute to the membership of other subsets of ms patients.

my 2 c

Hey, Legs. The well-known connections between pregnancy and MS have always brought questions. As with the documented vitamin D connections, why aren't researchers starting with what they know and doing work to find out the "why?"

Can we recruit an obstetrician or physician with a special interest in obstetrics here? I was pregnant 25 years ago, but am really ignorant about what was happening in my body! Of course, my suspicions about insulin prompt me to ask if a woman's body produces more insulin in the third trimester in order to put weight on the baby. As when the pancreas overcompensates with too much insulin in response to glucose in the bloodstream, perhaps the mother produces lots of insulin for the baby and this becomes "excess" after the birth (resulting in an exacerbation after delivery).

I'll have to do more investigating into this. Help me out if you can.

You can get D3 in a soft gel 2000 size from Vitamin Shoppe. They have an online store too. I'm not looking to plug them, but I searched for this stuff for a long time until I found it there. I got to a physical store to get it, but I know they have an online store too. napay

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Lyndacarol
when I was expecting my first child (some 14 years ago now) I was given a "Lucozade" test which involved drinking a bottle of the high energy drink (revolting stuff that it is!) followed by a blood test about an hour later. If I recall correctly, the test was used to highlight the impact of the drink on the woman's sugar levels and how efficiently each woman's body dealt it. Insulin production connection here?! Apparently the test helped identify those women likely to develop diabetes as a result of their pregnancy. Looking at it from an ms standpoint this thread has flagged up lots of markers- vit D depletion, hormonal changes, insulin activity and the general impact of pregnancy on the body. Am I the only one thinking that there must be a connection here- perhaps not as the trigger for ms but in increasing susceptibility. Of course guys get ms too but the male to female ratio is such that female genetic ( another marker!) make up must come into play too.
Muu

Hi there

Muu, do be careful, my mum takes Calichew and I noticed that it contains aspartame!! You can't win sometimes.

J.

Yes, Jaded, I noticed the aspertame on the pack yesterday!
Muu

Pregnancy, hormones, etc has been studied by Rhonda Voskhul -she was trialling estriol a few years ago. As far as I remember also uric acid is increased during pg, so it would scavenge nitric oxide, an MS baddie.

Logically, a baby is the biggest "foreign body" your own body ever has to accept, so it would make sense that the immune system dies down during the pg, and maybe it bounces back with extra force after the birth.
WW

Note of caution: be sure to check you don't have a Vitamin D/Vitamin A combination in the vitamin D supplements.

I recently went to replenish my vitamin D and had a hard time finding a formulation that only had D3 without also having vitamin A. The only pills available at the health store I went to were the vegetarian derived D2, which as jimmylegs pointed out, is not the effective form to take, or a D3:vitamin A combo. I feel comfortable going to to 4000IU with vitamin D, but not repetitively taking taking high doses of vitamin A along with it - the vitamin D:Vitamin A combo pills are not designed for multiple daily doses.

I had a nutritionist provide me with a vitamin D emulsion, which sounds similar to what jimmlylegs described. I will check the label to get the name of it, it is not a prescription. And inexpensive, a bottle is about seven bucks. Each small drop is 400 IU. It is very easy to add to food, especially soups and cereals, and is essentially tasteless. Much better than a pill, and probably is absorbed better.