Vitamin D: Is It the "Magic Bullet " that Will Cure Every Ailment

I knew about vitamins when I was a little girl. There was a huge bottle of One-A-Day vitamins sitting on a shelf by the sink in our kitchen and my mother was in the habit of reminding each of us kids, several times a day in fact, to be sure to take our vitamin. We usually did, but I didn't notice that we were any healthier than the families of some of my friends who didn't take vitamins at all.

Later, in school, we learned about the common vitamins and were told what each of them was good for. I've never forgotten how one of our teachers described the horrible things that would happen to us if we didn't get enough vitamin C. Not only would we have colds that would develop into pneumonia, she told us, but we could even get scurvy and all our teeth would fall out!

My teeth were already in pretty horrible condition from lack of dental care, but "scurvy"? Just the word sent shivers running up and down my spine. No matter what other malady might attack me, I surely didn't want scurvy.

Miss Adams, (that was my teacher's name), told us of sailors who didn't get their vitamin C because they were on ships at sea for months at a time. Unless they were lucky enough to put in at a port where they could stock up on oranges or other sources of vitamin C, she said, scurvy would get them for sure.

I had an uncle who was a sailor during WWII and I looked him over good whenever he came home on leave just to make sure he hadn't contracted this terrible disease. (If he ever did, it didn't show on the outside.)

Anyway, that was the extent of my vitamin education until I became an adult. When I got pregnant with my first child, my doctor prescribed prenatal vitamins which I purchased and took religiously, but still didn't really know what they were supposed to accomplish. Then, when my 3 girls were small, the same doctor prescribed liquid vitamin drops for them, and later told me to switch to a children's solid vitamin which looked pretty similar to the old One-A-Day vitamin I remembered from my childhood.

Quite a few years have come and gone, and I will confess that I have had spurts of taking vitamins over the years--sometimes on a regular basis but mostly not so regular. I did keep a bottle of Vitamin C on my own kitchen shelf to take whenever I felt a cold or sore throat coming on, but that was about it unless I read something in the paper about how Vitamin e was good for preventing heart attacks, etc.

Then, about two years ago, I started getting cramps in my legs. My doctor kept telling me to get more exercise so I did, even though I was already walking several miles two days a week and bicycling for 3 miles on 3 days a week. The leg cramps got worse and my legs got weaker. Our house has a lot of stairs, and it got to where I had to hold the railing to drag myself up those stairs. Going down was no problem as gravity was on my side. I chalked it up to getting older. (So did my doctor, I think, although she was too polite to say so.)

After I mentioned, during a routine physical, that I was having trouble getting up from a chair, (a lot of trouble), the doctor finally started to listen and recommended 10 sessions of physical therapy.

The physical therapy didn't hurt me, but it didn't help either. Mostly, it consisted of standing on one leg for a while and then on the other; lying on my back and lifting one leg up slowly and then the other; squatting down as far as I could while holding onto a chair, etc. (The squatting wasn't bad, but the getting back up from a squat was practically impossible.)

Anyway, after the 10 physical therapy sessions ended, my doctor finally got into gear and scheduled me for some blood work to see if we could track down the problem. When I met with her to discuss the results, she said she was rather surprised to find nothing wrong except a bit of a Vitamin D deficiency.

I left with a prescription in hand, thinking how ridiculous it seemed. I went to the doctor to find out what was causing me some pretty serious problems, and all I got for my trouble was a prescription for a vitamin. I could have bought that over the counter and saved myself the price of an office call.

The prescription was a bit spendy compared to over-the-counter Vitamin D, but I expected that. I was supposed to take one capsule a day for 14 days and then go to one capsule a week. Hmmm. I figured I had nothing to lose so I got with the program.

While I was waiting for results, I checked and found out that Vitamin D deficiencies can cause osteoporosis in adults or rickets in children. Rickets sounded as bad as the scurvy my long-ago school teacher had told me about. It is pretty bad, as it causes soft bones and may lead to bow-legs among other even worse things.

I also found out that you can increase the Vitamin D levels in your blood by getting out into the sunshine whenever possible. Sunshine actually helps your body manufacture Vitamin D. Another way to get more Vitamin D is to include Vitamin D rich foods in your diet. Some of the best choices for this would be dairy products such as cheese, butter, cream, and fortified milk. Fish and fortified cereals are also recommended.

By the end of the month, I was going up and down stairs without holding on, and getting out of my chair without help. The leg cramps had disappeared except for an occasional twinge. Now, more than a year later, I am still taking my one a week Vitamin D capsule, and none of my symptoms have come back. I won't tell you I don't have any aches and pains--hey, I'm human, and I'm no spring chicken, but I can say that Vitamin D has made a huge difference in my life.

Since I found so much relief, I have mentioned it to friends only to find out that their doctors, too, have recently prescribed Vitamin D for them. That's why I wondered if it was some new fad, or whether a recently published medical article had reminded medical professionals of knowledge they already had but were neglecting to use. Whatever the case, I'm glad my doctor decided to prescribe it for me.

Now, don't rush out to stock up on over-the-counter Vitamin D, and expect a miracle from popping a bunch of it. But, if you do have symptoms similar to mine that don't seem to be responding to anything else, ask your doctor to assess your blood level of the vitamin. Maybe you, too, will have a miraculous cure.

Check out the links provided with this article to learn more about how Vitamin D helps to build bone mass in our bodies, and helps to regulate calcium and potassium levels in our blood.