Almost a miracle
At 87, illness left her weak and fearful, until a vitamin D deficiency was revealed. Supplementing restored her health and vitality.
I had an amazing experience a couple of years ago. I was 87 years old, perfectly healthy and not on any medication. One Saturday afternoon, as I stood in the kitchen making a pot of tea, I began to feel so ill that all I could do was walk down the passage and fall onto my bed. I remained there for the next couple of hours, wondering what had gone wrong since I wasn’t in pain or even nauseous. I just felt very, very ill.
Eventually, I summoned enough energy to phone a friend and ask her to take me to the emergency department at the nearest hospital. All I could tell the doctor was that I “felt dreadful”. He gave me a thorough examination and asked lots of questions, but I could see he was as nonplussed as I was. The only problem he found was that my blood pressure was slightly high, so after an hour, he told me to go home and rest.
In the next 10 days, I landed in the emergency room twice more. On the second occasion, I had managed to drive myself to an appointment with my eye doctor. When I collapsed in her office, she put me in a wheelchair and told her receptionist to take me to the Emergency section in the hospital next door! This was the only time I found anything remotely funny about my situation.
Again, the doctor on duty could find nothing wrong, but this time he had me admitted to the hospital immediately and ordered a brain scan. That evening, my blood pressure measured 224/110 (very high) but the nurse who took it didn’t seem alarmed, so I decided I would not be, either. After a sleepless night, I had the scan, which declared me to be perfectly healthy.
My own doctor was equally puzzled. He arranged for two urine tests that came back negative. Then, after a couple of telephone discussions with a specialist, he decided it would be helpful if I had exploratory surgery for a suspected four-syllable condition in the region of my liver (I declined). All this time, I continued to have peaks of very high blood pressure and he would sometimes phone me in the evening to ask how I was.
By now, six weeks had passed and I thought I might be dying. I would wake in the mornings feeling normal but within hours my heart would start racing with my ears singing, face flushed and body hot. I had no appetite and sometimes just walking to the kitchen to make a cup of tea seemed impossible. I felt weak and very ill most of the time.
A friend suggested I get a second opinion from Dr B, who combined conventional and alternative medicine in his practice. He, too, could find nothing wrong with me, but he sent a blood sample away to be tested for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. The cause of my problem was revealed: I was very low in vitamin D. Instead of having a healthy level of about 70, I had a dangerously low level of 8.
I went to the pharmacy with a prescription for vitamin D3 and magnesium citrate (without calcium). It’s recommended to take them together because they are synergistic and magnesium is required for the conversion of vitamin D into its active form.
Within 48 hours, I could feel the difference. A week later I was ready to run around the block. I continued to take the two vitamins for several months as insurance and I have remained in good health ever since.
While writing this, I thought I would do a little survey of my own, so I asked 15 friends and acquaintances what they knew about vitamin D. Thirteen of them looked blank before remembering a connection with sunshine and rickets. Another had a friend who had taken it but she didn’t know why. And one had actually been prescribed it by her doctor but had stopped taking it because she felt she was on too many medications.
Vitamin D seems to be the forgotten vitamin. Most people are more familiar with vitamin C and the B vitamins (especially B12), but recent research suggests that D3 is coming into its own and could help with a whole raft of health problems; it might even help prevent some chronic diseases.
The owner of a health shop told me that 15 minutes in the sun around 12–2pm every day was sufficient to keep normal levels topped up. I was then living in a flat with a sunny garden, so that was easy, although I could not tell how much it was helping.
I have moved to a retirement home and these days, just in case, I take my newspaper into the garden three or four times a week when it’s sunny. I had my D levels tested a month ago and they were good.
I’ve read that quite a large percentage of the population is under-supplied with vitamin D, which isn’t surprising when you consider how many people nowadays spend their lives in offices with artificial lighting or in accommodation without gardens.
When I told my doctor about what I felt was almost a miraculous recovery, he was too polite to say so, but I could sense the word “coincidence” hovering in the air. But, believe me, this was no coincidence. Two inexpensive little bottles of pills brought me back from the brink.
