diabetes supplement
Diabetes Complications

Vitamin D Relieves the Pain of Peripheral Neuropathy

Your painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy can mean that you have a low level of vitamin D. But when you get enough vitamin D3, you might feel a lot better.

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If you have had diabetes for a few years, you probably have neuropathy, because this is perhaps the most common complication of diabetes, striking more than half of us. You probably know if you have it, either from chronic pain or because a doctor told you.

Most people don’t know their vitamin D level

But the big problem is that most people with diabetes don’t know what their blood level of Vitamin D is (technically known as 25(OH)D or 25-hydroxyvitamin D). In the 21 years since a doctor told me that I have type 2 diabetes, no doctor ever checked my level until a few years ago when I specifically asked for it. But I often get it checked at GrassRoots Health, and last month they told me that my level was 69 ng/ml, essentially the same level as the lab test my doctor had ordered earlier. Since I take 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily, I wasn’t surprised.

A low level of vitamin D is a “Fairly new topic of interest in pain,” the Vanderbilt University Medical Center wrote in 2009. A review article in Pain on “Vitamin D and chronic pain” had just found that we needed better evidence to conclude that vitamin D is relevant.

Pain was significantly less in the treatment group

A new study provides some of the evidence that we needed. Published online and not yet assigned to an issue of Medical Principles and Practice, the study is “Prospective Evaluation of the Effect of Short-Term Oral Vitamin D Supplementation on Peripheral Neuropathy in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” A research team from Kuwait sequentially assigned 57 people with both type 2 diabetes and diabetic peripheral neuropathy to a treatment group, matching them with 55 similar people in a placebo group.

The treatment group took a capsule that contained 50,000 IU of Vitamin D3 once a week for eight weeks, while the placebo group got a starch capsule. Using the Neuropathy Symptom Score, a standardized measure, the reduction was “significantly greater in the treatment group than in the placebo group.”

What vitamin D level is best?

The researchers for this study defined vitamin D deficiency as a serum 25(OH)D concentration of  less than 50 nmol/ml, which is equivalent to less than 20 ng/ml. This is less than the 30 ng/ml in a Diabetic Medicine study that found 81 percent of American adults with diabetes to have insufficient vitamin D. At the same time, “About 60 to 70 percent of people with diabetes have some form of neuropathy,” according to the National Institutes of Health.

Several years ago a doctor told me that the usual test showed him that I have neuropathy. But my doctors now tell me that I have reversed it. Meanwhile, I have lost weight, keep my blood sugar under better control, and take enough vitamin D.

Totally reversing diabetic peripheral neuropathy takes careful diabetes management and years of effort. But reversing at least some of its chronic pain may be a lot easier and quicker.

This article is based on an earlier version of my article published by HealthCentral.

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  • garrett houston walker newcomb at

    Vanderbilt? Kuwait???! Whom therein? 50000 u/d why not 5000000 or 50,000000? afterall there is no upper established limit for D3.

  • Locke at

    Vitamin D Supplement gave me burning neuropathy on my face on nerves which are already weak.

  • Helen at

    years ago i saw an excellent endo in L.A. he recommended this protocol here is the vitamin d product http://www.biotechpharmacal.com/catalog/d3-50-50000-iu/

    scroll down in this article to Vitamin D deficiency
    http://www.goodhormonehealth.com/VitaminD6mar10.pdf

  • Michael Alkalay at

    Hi David,

    I thought you might be interested to hear about the positive results I had with Vitamin D after reading this article.

    I had been having very significant pain from neuropathy, despite my physicians efforts with gabapentin (it helped, but nowhere near enough). One of the most unpleasant effects was that when I raised my feet off the floor at night after getting in to bed, the neuropathy escalated dramatically, often requiring me to sleep on the couch in a semi-upright position.

    Since starting taking your recommended 5,000 IU of Vitamin D daily, my neuropathy has abated very dramatically, almost immediately, and I am finding life a lot more pleasant these days.

    Many, many thanks!

    • David Mendosa at

      Thank you, Michael, for sharing your positive experience with managing the pain of neuropathy with 5,000 IU of vitamin D every day! This is wonderful!

  • Scott Rubel at

    David, I do not understand why 50,000 units once a week would be better than 7,200 units once a day. It seems like consistency is generally crucial with supplements.

    • David Mendosa at

      I have the same feeling that you do, Scott. I take 5,000 IU every day.

  • Dr. Eddy H. Pevovar at

    Hi David, how are you?
    I’m enjoying all of your great stuff and wanted to tell you about some testing I’m doing. I’m using a form of Vitamin D3 and taking 150 mg of BENFOTIAMINE. The product is NeuRemedy Plus from Realm Labs in Boca Raton, Fl. It has 500 mcg of Vitamin B12 as well…in the form of Methylcobalamin…8,333% of the daily value. Do you know about this product? My Cousin is a Podiatrist/Surgeon and has mre than 50 diabetic patients taking this supplement. I’ve been using it for about 5 months now myself. It is only dispensed to Physicians for resale. Let me know your thoughts about it. There is info on line at http://www.realmlabs.net
    Physicians pay about $ 32.50 per bottle of 120 Capsules and dosing is bid. One morning and one evening, so it’s a 60 day supply.
    I hope you are doing well.
    Ed

    • David Mendosa at

      The supplemental vitamins D3 and B12 are definitely valuable for us, Ed. particularly as we grow older. I think that the benfotiamine (a form of B1) may also be valuable. But I am not convinced that any proprietary formulation of it can be any better than getting these vitamins separately and they generally are much more expensive.