Learn the importance of proper Vitamin D Levels.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399494/
https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-vitamin-d/art-20363792
https://www.ajgponline.org/article/S1064-7481(12)60890-2/fulltext
https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(18)30579-6/fulltext
https://www.parentgiving.com/elder-care/vitamin-d-deficiency-a-common-risk-factor-for-seniors/
Welcome to knowledge for caregivers. My name is Kathy, the host of this podcast. I have been a geriatric nurse for the past 10 years, I am going to share with you the knowledge that I have learned helping seniors age in place. This is the same knowledge that I use to take care of my own age loved ones. I hope you can use this knowledge to help your own age loved ones aged with dignity, and grace.
Imagine my surprise when I found a new doctor, and I was talking to him about my fibro myalgia how I've struggled with it, sir. So many years, I've tried different medications. And he said, Why don't we do a test of your vitamin D level, I was surprised that it came back as being low. And he told me I needed to take a supplement. I've been taking supplements of vitamin D for a long time. Then I noticed with my job, especially if I went into a facility that a lot of my clients had vitamin D supplements as part of their prescription. When COVID hit, I began to see a lot of studies that was showing that people with low vitamin D levels were having more complications or possibly death. It's hard to tell with so much new one COVID and so many other risk factors that people had, whether vitamin D made sense for people to supplement. But I know doctors are giving a lot of people vitamin D during the pandemic, especially older people, because honestly, there's not much of a downside to taking vitamin D. What is vitamin D? Well, most people refer to it as the sunshine vitamin. That's because when you're out in the sun, your skin takes sunshine, and produces vitamin D. Vitamin D is what we call a fat soluble vitamin. That means it's stored in your fat cells. The good news about vitamin D being stored in your fat cells means that it stays in your body longer, which is why a lot of people who are in the sun a lot during the warmer months can still have adequate vitamin D levels during the winter. They are just now beginning to discover all the different things that vitamin D does. For a long time, they knew that vitamin D definitely helped you absorb the calcium and phosphorus in your body. So what they found out was if you had low vitamin D, you also probably had low calcium. And that could lead to things like osteoporosis and bone fractures. But then they began to find out that vitamin D also helps to regulate our immune system. This is where people began to have resistance to disease so they're less likely to get the flu or maybe to get as sick. If you want to know about all the things that I said to supplement with to take as your COVID strategies. Go back and listen to Episode 11. Just a side note, I said in that episode that maybe you might want to take a baby aspirin because they're finding out a lot of people with COVID developed blood clots. Well, they just came out with a study that shows that those people who took a baby aspirin during COVID had less complications from COVID. So that's just a side note. In addition to the benefits of absorbing calcium and increasing our immune system, they also have begun to find that those people with normal levels of vitamin D had a decreased risk of developing multiple sclerosis, decreased risk of developing heart disease and getting the flu.
Then they were also surprised that those with normal vitamin D levels also helped with depression, mood, and helped people maintain weight loss. It also says that it helps with fibromyalgia. I have been taking vitamin D for five years so it doesn't cure my fibromyalgia, whether it's helping or not, I do not know. Again, like I said it doesn't hurt to take vitamin D. Just because some vitamin D is good for you doesn't mean you want to go out and stock up on too much vitamin D. I have not heard of people overdosing on it but you definitely want to talk to your doctor about how much vitamin D that you should take. So why do older people not have enough vitamin D? Well, one reason is that when they go outside their skin just doesn't work as well. absorbing the sunshine. Some older people live in places with higher pollution and that block some of the sunrays and we began to do this big campaign to prevent skin cancer. By doing that, what we have done is told everybody to put sunscreen on. So sunscreen is great at preventing skin cancer, it's not very good at helping us absorb vitamin D. We've also found that people who have darker skin, though they don't maybe sunburn as easily, or get skin cancer, they also don't absorb as much vitamin D. Some of the symptoms of having a low vitamin D level is that you're tired all the time you have aches and pains, you can begin to develop what's called a stress fracture. stress factor is just, you know, you might be walking along and a part of your bone just has a little small fracture in it. And you really didn't do anything very heavy to break a bone. The question then becomes if I have low vitamin D levels, how do I bring it up? Well, first of all, if you don't know, you can always ask your doctor at your annual visit to screen you for vitamin D, I think it's something that should be done for anybody over 50 years old. Of course, the best way to get vitamin D is to get a little bit of sunshine, make sure you have some bare skin and you're out there working in the yard or the garden and getting some good old sunshine. There's are a few foods that also have vitamin D. And there are things like salmon, sardines, egg yolk shrimp, I don't know if you can get enough just from those foods. Because of the benefits of vitamin D. It's also fortified in our milk, our cereals, our yogurt and some orange juices. I for one can't do milk or cereal or yogurt or orange juice. So therefore I talk to my doctor about what kind of supplement that I do need to take. As I said, it's important if you are taking vitamin D to make sure that your primary care doctor or manager is checking those levels making sure that they are normal. They've also found that people with normal vitamin D levels also don't experience as much cognitive decline. So it might also be helping people to stave off dementia, for psoriasis for people who have rashes and things on their skin. It can also benefit them to get like a vitamin D cream. As I've said with all of my episodes, it's always very important to talk to your doctor, even about supplements. Like I said, last week, I talked about medical marijuana, it's important for your doctors to know if you're taking medical marijuana because it might mess with some of your other medications. One of the things I have found with vitamin D is that it can decrease the absorption of some other medications. And that can affect how effective they are for you. So there's nothing wrong with vitamin D supplements. But just make sure to get your levels checked by your doctor because that kind of determines how much vitamin D that you should take. Most people can get a vitamin D supplement just over the counter. They come in these little gel caps. There is a prescription vitamin D. It's like a very large dose, you take it once a week, I used to do a medication planner for a client of mine. And it was a big, little green pill that I would put in there. And he just took it one day a week. I don't know if that helped him or not. But it definitely was a prescription form. But most of the time most people don't need prescription. Again, check with your doctor, get your vitamin D levels checked, and see if that might help some of your moods or your resistance to disease. If you're like I'm always getting sick, I seem to catch everything. You know, talk to your doctor about those kinds of things. I think a lot of times we go in and we think oh I don't want to bother him. That seems like I'm always catching every cold and my immune system isn't working very well. There are different things that doctors can check for that. But a lot of times they're just busy and overwhelmed. I also have an episode about how to talk to your doctor. That would be a good episode to go back and listen to thank you for listening and going on this caregiving journey with me make sure to take care of your own help as well as the person that you are caring for.
If you like the podcast, share it. See the show notes for more information. If you want to see resources or set up consultation services for your unique family need, go to www.kathysconsulting.com. Remember, all content is for informational purposes and not meant to replace consultation for the medical profession.