Y’all thought I was fucking around about wanting to be related to a pirate and yet, here I am with “dangerously low” levels of Vitamin D. I have already gotten reassurance from Rachel about the kinds of questions I need to be asking the doctor and am now just in the “I was freaked out, but am now making jokes about it” stage.
But damn! I didn’t even know “dangerously low levels of Vitamin D” was a thing.
I do feel like this almost means a window in my office is a medical necessity, though, right?
It is kind of funny, though, because my first thought was “But I’m fat!” as if that’s an immunity from being malnourished in some way. I mean, I’m obviously getting enough right?
Oh well.
Bodies. They’re fucking weird.
Tiny Cat Pants 
My last checkup, I too had a sudden vitamin D deficiency. When I started researching why this might be, I learned that the human body synthesizes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Synthesizes it from… cholesterol! Guess who had been put on cholesterol-lowering medication six months earlier!
Ive been “dangerously low on Vitamin D” for about 5 years now. Normal is something like 30. Mine is 11.
I had some weird shit going on for a few months & on my yearly (cough, first since 2003, cough) doctor visit, I had blood work done and I too have low Vitamin D. I’ve been taking 10,000 mg per week for a few months now. I laughed at the results at first because in summer I am at a pool 2x a week, all day. But I slather on sunscreen. So, essentially this is an aging thing*.
(*And probably another way our computers are slowly killing us.)
Metformin has been linked to both vitamin D and B12 deficiencies. PCOS (for which I recall you take metformin, correct?) also has been discussed as causing vitamin D deficiencies. Apparently the metabolic imbalances cause problems with absorption of D.
I take the latter two because of the first, per my wise PCP’s orders. The D pill is something like 10,000 iu. Gah!
I doff my crocheted-square cap to you, fellow vitamin-guzzler and PCOS liver-wither. ;)
P.S. — I don’t recall any studies about rickets being caused by pining over the Captain Morgan guy. Perhaps they thought that was already common knowledge.
;D
xo
I do feel cheated. If I’m turning into a pirate due to lack of proper nutrition (which I think we can safely define as “not enough ice cream”), I should at least get hallucinations of Captain Morgan, right?
You can hallucinate while suffering from rickets, right?