Vitamin D Supplement = more headaches??

Hi, I have recently tried a new supplement, vitamin D 1000IU. I noticed many people here mentioned it helping their headaches, and also my doctor recommended I try it for my psoriasis. However, since I have been taking it, I have had a migraine and needed to take my Frova every single day. Normally I get migraines every other day or so, this is very noticeable. It started the same day I started the Vitamin D. I do work outside all day long, so maybe I am already getting enough vitamin D, but I still did not expect it to give me more headaches. Has anyone else had this experience??

I have been taking 5000 mg per day, and I think it has helped me.
But one thing we find is that everyone seems to react differently to everything.
If you think it has increased your headaches, by all means stop and see if things improve.

Hi,
Ingredients in Vitamin D3 supplement are
Vitamin D3 (as cholecalciferol) 1000 IU
Other ingredients: rice flour, gelatin, maltodextrin, vegetable stearate.
Contains corn and rice.

I personally use liquid Vitamin D drops. They contain Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) and corn oil only. Each drop contains 400 IU.

With anything I use I try and get the product with as few ingredients as possible. Perhaps try a different brand or delivery method of your Vitamin D before you throw in the towel. Maybe you are sensitive to one of the additives in the Vitamin.

Mine actually has soybean oil, gelatin, vegetable glycerin, and corn oil. Well, perhaps I will keep it and try it again in the winter when I am not getting as much sun...

Your Vitamin D seems to be simple enough with the ingredients. The ingredients I listed were from a random Vitamin D supplement I found on the internet. I had no idea what you were actually taking. My point was just that the additional ingredients that manufacturers add might have contributed to your problem. I don't think Vitamin D itself would be the problem, because we all get that from sunlight. It is also added to the milk we drink, if you consume that.

I do mainly focus more on Vitamin D intake for myself when the days get shorter and colder. I don't think I have taken any additional Vitamin D for a few months, but will start up again shortly.

Hi Seaine,
You mention "Mine actually has soybean oil,". Well in my experience anything, anything at all that has soy in it will give me and instant bad head. So, perhaps trying a different brand that does not contain soy products might give you a better result.

I have been on liquid Vit D3 for about two month now, 2000 daily and I have noticed that my pianless days last longer.
I need to take Vit D3 anyway, becasue I have a great sensitivity to sunlight and cannot stay in the open sunshine, so I need to take Vit D for my bones, but I think it has also helped my head.
I hope it might be of help to you. It is worth trying anyway.

The reference to 5000mg at the start of this post must (I hope) be a typo. It must be 5000IU, not 5000-milligrams or 5000-micrograms.

Anyway, it does pay to be a bit cautious about how much vitamin D you are taking. 600IU (15 micrograms) is the RDA, which is probably the low safe level. 4000 IU (100 micrograms) is probably the max (un)safe level... see link below.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/929.html

On the flip side to my dosage concerns, vitamin D sounds like a very very good thing to experiment with to see if it helps, along with B12 and magnesium (and some others). I saw somewhere (maybe in that link above or someone mentioned it here) that D and magnesium should be taken together, that magnesium is needed to metabolise vitamin D.

Magnesium is pretty much impossible to OD on as your body can clear it out so effectively (and unpleasantly!!!!). B and C are similar in that regard. But I think that those fat soluble ones (A, D, E) should be used with some caution.

Please accept my apologies if this post sounds nannying. Unfortunately its in my nature to worry (excessively?).

Mini wrote:Well in my experience anything, anything at all that has soy in it will give me and instant bad head. So, perhaps trying a different brand that does not contain soy products might give you a better result.

Oh, really? I don't think I eat that many things with soy in them so perhaps that could be a trigger for me and I haven't noticed. I will look for a brand without soy and try again.

Has anyone noticed the gelatin in vitamins giving them migraines? I tried more brands of vitamin D, one with safflower oil and one with corn oil. The corn oil seemed the best, but it still gave me more migraines, just not as bad as the other two. The thing they all had in common was the gelatin.

I noticed on a list of MSG names that "gelatin" supposedly always has MSG in it. I'm not sure how this works chemically, but if it's true maybe that's why the pills are giving me migraines? I read that MSG is an exitotoxin, which would make sense as to why it could cause migraines. My B2 also has gelatin in it, so maybe the combination of both pills is too much for my head?

I have now ordered a vegetarian version of B2 and vitamin D and I will see how that goes.

since i am highly sensitive to "other" ingredients in all products, i'll take a shot with this issue.

my vit. D is by Thompson, and is a pill, so there's no gelatin to contend with. gelatin is an MSG ingredient, because of the kind of processing it undergoes, splitting the naturally occurring glutamates into "free glutamate", which is foreign to the body and makes some of us royally sick.

i never take anything with soy, either. but my question for seaine is: have you had your levels blood-tested? maybe it isn't really necessary for you to take this, since you surely don't need another migraine trigger. dianne

dcook60 wrote:have you had your levels blood-tested? maybe it isn't really necessary for you to take this, since you surely don't need another migraine trigger. dianne

No, and unfortunately I am losing my health insurance so going to the doctor for anything will not be an option. My 26th birthday is in a week so I can't be on my dad's insurance anymore, and every company I'm applying to is rejecting me.

Seaine,
I went searching online and you can get your vitamin D levels tested at home for $65. https://vitamindcouncil.zrtlab.com/
The link is also on this page, after you read a bunch of information from the Vitamin D Council. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-deficiency/am-i-vitamin-d-deficient/

I looked into what they had to say about Vitamin D and headaches. They said Vitamin D will help tension headaches, but it won't do anything for migraines.

I said I take Vitamin D. I don't take it to prevent migraines. I work inside, live in a northern climate, and have just started to drink pasteurized milk that has been fortified with vitamin D. I had to supplement or I would have never have gotten enough Vitamin D into my diet.

It doesn't really matter if it's proven to help migraines or not. After all, there appear to be no studies saying red #40 food coloring gives people migraines, and yet it gives me the most awful migraines that my triptan doesn't work for and I don't need the internet to tell me this. So, I would rather trust that some people on this forum say vitamin D helps their migraines, and give it a try. Anyways, my doctor already told me to try it for my scalp psoriasis.

My vitamin D is in a capsule and it does not have any liquid or gelatin in it. It's all dry.
I get them online at www.omega-1000.com. Cost is about $4/month (not including shipping).

I've been taking this for over 3 years now, and my vitamin D levels test in the normal range, so I don't think it's too much.

I hope this helps.

Ok so I have been taking my new vitamin D brand which is vegetarian, has no gelatin, and has no soybean oil or any other oil. My migraines have gone back down to before they flared up with the gelatin. I would even say they are less painful and take longer to turn into a "real" migraine. However the frequency has not improved, still about every other day.

Also, not sure if this is related, but everyone else at work has gotten very sick over the past two weeks yet I have remained fine. Maybe it's the vitamin D? It's supposed to be good for your immune system. All those suckers are taking "Emergen-C" thinking it will help them, and here I am with something I was trying for migraines keeping me safe from their plague!

Who else is on Vitamin D, how many IUs, and did it give you fewer headaches? I'm currently taking 1,000 in the morning.
(P.S. if anyone has a smartphone, download "iHeadache" which is a great app for keeping track of your migraines)

I'm taking 5000, so quite a bit of a higher dosage.
I'm glad you found a supplement without all the unnecessary additives.

Well, maybe you are not just comfortable with the way you get the supplement. It could be that you have some difficulties with it. The best thing you can do is to get Vitamin D directly, mean you get your self under sunlight at the right time and with just exact amount. Don't overdo it as it may cause further problem like sever headache or skin cancer. Know more about the benefits of sunlight surely it can help you.