What A Healthy Vitamin D Range Means To Me

I have been telling my story for 2 years or so. I have been writing mostly about the misconceptions the general public seem to have about tanning, and tanners. I have been motivated to tell the other side of the story and I feel like my focus has been on de-bunking the common arguments against tanning. I think it is time to go a bit more into detail about how my life and my health has improved since raising my Vitamin D levels. 

First and foremost, I am not in constant pain anymore.  I dislocated my knee in 2005 and it never felt right after that. I chalked it up to being older and unable to fully recover. It was painful to do much of anything, all of my muscles ached regularly, and the knee practically throbbed when I would do too much.  Once my Vitamin D levels started improving, I started feeling better. After a few months of tanning, I didn’t even notice my knee. The pain was gone. It inspired me to try going to the gym and get into a workout routine. I started losing weight and felt better than I had in years. It was life changing. Now I walk 5-10k any chance I get, and I enjoy being more active.

Second, I feel like I have more energy. Now that could be from working out, but without Vitamin D helping alleviate muscle pain, I wouldn’t be able to work out. So technically, that is an indirect benefit, but I’m counting it. Before tanning and increasing my Vitamin D level, I was often too tired to do anything. I was the queen of procrastination because I was too lazy to get anything done.

I have always suffered migraines and I have noticed they are less frequent in the last 2 years. My migraines never had much of a pattern to go by, I would go months without one, then get slammed with 3 or 4 in a short period of time. I do still get one occasionally, but they don’t ambush me anymore.

I had some asthma issues about 5 years back. Never really had any experience with it as a child, but suddenly had trouble breathing, mostly in the winter months. I have no idea what triggered it in my adult life. I was given an inhaler and while it was managed easily, it was inconvenient.  I have not had to use my inhaler at all since improving my Vitamin D level. Well, maybe one time when we were moving and there was a lot of dust in the air. I think we can give that time a pass. When I was first diagnosed, I was using it several times a week.

I do not get colds or the flu as often.  I rarely got the flu anyway, but anytime I feel a cold coming on, I increase my Vitamin D by taking supplements.  While other people around me get the cold full blast, I get a case of the sniffles most of the time. When my kids start having signs of a cold, I give them supplements and they either get a mild cold or none at all. It seems when the cold does take hold, it isn’t as intense and it doesn’t last as long. This is the only time I get Vitamin D through supplement form, and I feel it is very helpful.

These are the main health improvements I found for me personally. What I have found interesting is the many, many, benefits associated with a healthy Vitamin D level that are being studied and reported daily.  If you have a chance, check out the list on the Vitamin D Council’s website about how Vitamin D plays a role in several medical conditions here:

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/#