Vitamin D Deficiency And Celiac?

[lesliev523]

Hello,

I had posted here in this forum a few months back, and now my doctor is revisiting Celiac as a diagnosis for me. A few years ago, I started with chronic constipation. Last June I would have "gall bladder attacks" so bad I would be home from work for a couple days. Tons of tests run, and nothing found to be wrong with my gall bladder, but we decided to take it out anyways. There was an endoscopy at that time, and they did not find any evidence of celiac. Shortly after the surgery, I still was not feeling better so I went gluten free. It was awesome.

Well.... over the course of the last six months I have let gluten creep back into my life (although not as bad as I was before) and I feel like crap again. Over the last four months I have had terrible anxiety, stomach issues (occasional constipation, joint pain, allergy/sinus issues, fatigue...etc. So my doctor did a blood panel last week to look at autoimmune (not celiac because she knew i was gluten "light"). Negative for the ANA (?) test, but I had seriously low levels of Vitamin D. I was at 20, norm is between 50-100. So I am on mega vitamin doses.

I have seen some correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and Celiac.

I am also wondering if I am low in magnesium, because of the constipation.

I was advised to go full out gluten for the next few weeks, and then get the blood test done.

Anyone else have experience with Vitamin D and their Celiac, or have similar situation to mine? I am a little nervous going with full out gluten again!

[RiFi]

Hi Leslie,

I'm really sorry to hear you've been having such a rough time of it lately. I'm sure it's been made more distressful by not being able to find an underlying cause.

From everything that I've read, there definitely is an association between low Vitamin D and celiac disease. What are your calcium levels like? Often low Vitamin D leads to low calcium levels because it's essential for calcium absorption.

You mentioned your magnesium levels - it's probably worth getting them checked because magnesium is essential for Vitamin D absorption.

If you google 'magnesium and vitamin D', you'll find a lot of articles. There's an interesting one here: Open Original Shared Link This article links to another site - Open Original Shared Link where you'll find a lot about the importance of Vit D. I do sometimes feel the main author on this site, Dr Cannell, has a barrow to push (frenetically) and there's definitely some bias in his reporting, but there's still some great information here.

Also, have you explored any other food allergies/ sensitivities you might be having to food chemicals that naturally occur in food ie salicylates, amines, glutamate. A lot of the symptoms you've described above can be caused by foods high in these natural chemicals. There's some good hard science around all of this and there's a great introduction Open Original Shared Link You'll also find a wealth of information at Sue Dengate's Open Original Shared Link site.

One more thing - psyllium husks are excellent for constipation (they contains both soluble and insoluble fibre) - in Australia you can buy them by the bag at supermarkets and some chemists. A word of caution though, most people can take it without a problem but I ended up developing an allergy to it - rash/ itching - but apparently this is pretty rare.

Best of luck finding some solutions

[maximoo]

well when there is villi damage nutrients aren't absorbed so in addition to vit D many celiacs have anemia as well but not all. However a large portion of americans are vit D deficient due to the overuse of sunblock & avoiding the sun. Many Northerners are vit D deficient especially during winter months. We need sun but not too much sun. Depending on how fair you are a general rule of thumb is 10-15 mts a day of sunlight several times a week.

Is it correlated to celiac--yes and no. Yes, in that it's evidence of your villi not being able to absorb it. No, because of reasons stated above.

How important is it to you that you have a dx? you know that you feel much better w/o gluten. You could have non celiac gluten intolerance where you feel like crap but no damage to villi occurs. You could go thru testing & everything turns out negative. I'm sure you would still prefer to be gluten-free so you don't feel like crap.

Only you can decide if testing is worth it or not. As far as Vit D take your mega doses & try your best to get some sun. Spring is just about here.

Good Luck!

[lesliev523]

Thank you for the responses. Part of me wants a diagnoses because I feel that my family thinks that this is all in my head, and I want to prove them wrong.

And I love the sun, but we definitely don't get enough of it in the winter, because I live in northern Michigan. It was suggested that I actually visit the tanning bed, as well.

Thank you for the responses!

[Metoo]

I was not diagnosed with celiac (negative blood test). But I have vitamin D problems. Last April I had a level of 14! 12 is as low as the testing range went. Though taking over 70,000 Ius for several weeks, then backing down to 35,000 Ius I got my level up to 55 by July (high sun time for me also June through July).

I continued taking 35,000 a week until September. Then I just occasionally supplemented.

I went gluten free in November. I just got my blood work back and I have a level of 32 again. So now I am back to taking 28,000 IUs a week.

I live in Michigan too, so right now should be about our lowest Vitamin D levels. It isn't until May that we start getting enough UV rays to make vitamin D up here.

Also, NO a tanning bed will not help your Vitamin D production that much. The consequences and damage, far out weigh your ability to get vitamin d from it. Low levels of vitamin D already puts you at a higher risk for cancer.

[maximoo]

DEFINITELY NO TANNING BEDS!!! They will burn u w/o providing any vit D. Natural sunlight is what we need no artificial crap!

[lesliev523]

Noted on the tanning bed, thank you. My GP actually mentioned that it would be okay, but she gave me very specific instructions on doing so.

[maximoo]

I wouldn't do it. Dr's can be misinformed or ill-informed.I know too many ppl who died from melanoma. But suit yourself. Good luck!

[foam]

I would like to see everyone here get a Vit D level test, imho it's the main or perhaps only cause for a sensitive digestive system. I'm working my way up to 120 levels. I've gone from 20 to 67 so far (would have been around 80-90 before winter started) and I feel 10x more amazing already. Go and have the test.