Question:

I have been Vitamin D deficient now for almost a year. They have had me on 50,000 units once a week until recently and have now bumped me up to 50,000 twice a week.

However, I am still deficient. I am always tired, have to force myself to do things most days, and have major mood swings… My body hurts all over, so they said, “oh you have Fibromalagia.” Now this new Doctor says it’s all caused from the lack of vitamin D…..

Do you have any suggestions, or help for me? I am at my wits end!

Sincerely,
K
Dallas, Texas

Answer:

Hi K,

Wow, that sounds like it hasn’t been a very fun year. At least your doctors were aware enough to check for Vitamin D Deficiency, but it sounds like they are missing a few things.

First, a possible solution

Since you live in Dallas, you might be able to remedy this situation in a few weeks by GOING OUT IN THE SUN! Get outside in a bikini, or nothing at all if you have some privacy and are inclined to do so- and get as much sun as you can every day to the point of BEFORE you get burned.

Sun is the way that we were MEANT to get vitamin D. So, if that is at all a possibility, then do that. You can protect your face with sunscreen and a big hat, but otherwise, let your entire body get as much sun as you possibly can- just don’t burn.

You can make up to 20,000 IU’s of Vitamin D per day by exposing your skin in this very efficient Vitamin D Deficiency Treatment.

What your doctor is doing wrong

So, one of the things that your doctors are not doing right is giving you a PRESCRIPTION for your Vitamin D. Prescription Vitamin D is in the form of Vitamin D2 and researchers have stated, “Vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, should not be regarded as a nutrient suitable for supplementation”. So, print out this study, sit down with a highlighter pen and highlight any questions that you may have for your doctor and ask him why he chose to use Vitamin D2 to treat you instead of the far superior form of Vitamin D3 that he can’t write a prescription for, but nonetheless is widely available and inexpensive.

Why You Might be Deficient

So, one of the reasons that you may still be deficient is that you are taking Vitamin D2 which has up to one-tenth the bioavailability to the body. The other reason that you may be deficient is that you are not ABSORBING the vitamin D that you ARE getting, and THAT is a critical component of illness that doctors almost always completely overlook.

You see, under certain circumstances (and I’ll talk about those in a minute), it’s possible for people to develop a condition called Increased Intestinal Permeability or “Leaky Gut Syndrome”. Doctors seem to think that this condition is something that alternative practitioners made up, but there are THOUSANDS of references to increased intestinal permeability in the literature and several different easy to do tests to test for this.

It is very real and can cause you not to be absorbing nutrients.

Also, if you have been unable to absorb vitamin D, what ELSE have you not been absorbing? Doctors seem to think that if they find vitamin D deficiency, then they have found “The Answer”, because they haven’t been able to find anything else wrong with you. But really, that should provoke a lot more questions- like WHY you are not absorbing your vitamin D and what else are you deficient in. Your doctor says that your problems are all because of the vitamin D, but has he tested your Vitamin B12 level? How about your Carnitine level, coenzyme q10, folic acid, RBC Magnesium and other nutrients?

So, you might want to ask him why he hasn’t tested you for any of those, even though you can test all of those and many more in an inexpensive in-home urine test called The Organix Profile. This is not some “woo-woo” test, although your doctor will make you believe that it is. It is based on years of research on substances called Organic Acids that are produced and excreted in urine in differing amounts depending upon what is going on in the body. This test is has published PEER-REVIEWED studies as to its accuracy, and yet your doctor just simply will not do it because he has not been told about it.

But you ABSOLUTELY need to insist that your doctor test you for Vitamin B12 deficiency using a test called a METHYLMALONIC ACID TEST, or MMA. HE will WANT to get a “Vitamin B12 Level”, but don’t let him. That is NOT the test that you want to get, you want an MMA. It is much more accurate and many studies show that it is MUCH more sensitive for vitamin B12 deficiency than is a “Vitamin B12 Level”.

What is Causing this Malabsorption

So, if you get back your MMA and it is HIGH (HIGH MMA is indicative of LOW Vitamin B12), then you are not ABSORBING properly. Why wouldn’t you be absorbing nutrients? Well, a couple of possible reasons.

1) You might have Undiagnosed Celiac Disease. Undiagnosed Celiac Disease is a HUGE problem, even though your doctor will think that it is “RARE”. It is NOT rare, it is common- possibly up to 1 in every 33 people! So, if your MMA is high, you should INSIST on being tested for Celiac Disease, and here are Some Research Studies for you to print out and take to your doctor.

2) You might also have the H Pylori Bacteria causing inflammation and malabsorption in your stomach- EVEN IF you have no stomach problems!! Doctors seem to think that you MUST have stomach problems for H pylori to be a problem, but research just doesn’t show this to be the case. People with ASYMPTOMATIC H pylori can have inflammation and malabsorption.

So, there is SO much more that I could tell you, but that is a start. So, here is your action plan:

1) Print out the study, “The Case Against Vitamin D2′ and ask your doctor WHY he is choosing to use it when researchers say that he shouldn’t be.

2) Insist on getting tested for MMA or Methylmalonic Acid. Your fatigue is certainly a justifiable reason to test for Vitamin B12, as if your malabsorption of Vitamin D.

Good luck,

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

Candida Albicans is a common yeast EVERYWHERE. It shows up in the environment, on our bodies and in our bodies. It competes for space with ‘good’ bacteria on the skin and anywhere that it is warm and moist in the body- such as the mouth, constantly wet skin and the genitals to name a few places that it colonizes. When your immune system is good, Candida Albicans is usually not even noticeable, but if your immunity is compromised from stress, disease and other problems, then it may dominate the space that it’s in- wherever that is- and cause a candida infection.

No one denies the existence of common Candida infection like ‘thrush’ in the mouth and yeast infections of the vagina, but the debate occurs where the intestines begin.

Some people believe that Candida Albicans overgrows in the intestinal tract of some people under certain circumstances and causes problems associated with common health problems such as tiredness, brain fog, aches and pains frequent infections and many other seemingly ‘vague’ and unrelated problems. Most doctors don’t believe this- even when they can’t explain these problems, leaving people with as few answers as when they first began going to the doctor in the first place.

Some facts about Candida Albicans

Candida Albicans certainly can grow almost anywhere inside or outside of the body- causing infection. One study‘ Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Candidiasis’, states“Candida species are the most common cause of invasive fungal infections in humans, producing infections that range from non life‐threatening mucocutaneous disorders to invasive disease that can involve any organ.” So, according to this study, physicians think that Candida must be able to cause infection anywhere, just not in the digestive tract where is is found on a regular basis!

But when researchers who study these people found that they gave them a sugary meal, there was an actual increase in their blood alcohol concentration! Furthermore beer and wine makers have known for centuries that yeasts have a remarkable ability to create alcohol from sugar, while beer and wine drinkers have known for centuries that alcohol ingestion can cause sensations of fatigue and fuzzy thinking that most of us have experienced after a night of drinking. Some other research showed that the ability to create alcohol after eating simple carbohydrates disappeared-and people felt better after treatment with anti fungal medications and a diet that excluded simple sugars. Dr. William Crook, who studied this phenomenon in the 1980′s, treated his patients successfully using antifungals and diet. He become a very vocal proponent of the theory that Candida Albicans created these illnesses that people experienced. Other doctors have not been so eager to call it ‘Intestinal Candida’, but because they realize that there IS a real phenomenon, it was called ‘Gut Fermentation Syndrome’ or ‘Auto Brewery Syndrome’.

There is, however, further support of the ‘Candida Infection’ hypothesis in the book Alcohol in Health and Disease
where they cite cases of thirty-nine women in Japan with digestive symptoms and Candida infections whose blood alcohol levels increased after they ate a high carbohydrate meal. Also, some clinics will test patients with common ‘Intestinal Yeast Infection’ symptoms for antibodies to Candida Yeast. These patients often DO have high antibody levels, meaning that they either have a Candida infection or have had one somewhere in their body at one time, and they generally improve with antifungal treatment and the low sugar and low simple carbohydrate dietary plan that Dr. Crook uses so successfully in his practice.

While you may not be able to call this problem ‘Intestinal Candida’ with 100% accuracy, there is a lot of research pointing to the conclusion that this condition COULD be a Candida infection in the digestive tract. No matter what you want to say it is: ‘Intestinal Candida Infection’, ‘Auto Brewery Syndrome’ or ‘Gut Fermentation Syndrome’- it’s evident that many are suffering from real and frequently disabling symptoms that could be caused by Candida Albicans. And no matter what the problem, if people feel better when they remove sugars and simple carbohydrates from the diet, then something is going on and we have an effective solution that is underutilized in a population group that could greatly benefit from this simple and cost effective approach to an expensive and debilitating condition.

In addition to a no sugar, low simple carbohydrate diet, I recommend to all of my clients with suspected Candida Infection to go on a Gluten Free diet as well, like the one outlined in The Healthy Urban Kitchen
. Gluten is the protein portion that is found in many grains, and it is an ‘Inflammatory Food’ whether or not you have an ‘allergy’ to it. But I find that people with Intestinal Candida or Gut Fermentation Syndrome nearly always feel better when they get off gluten.

A gluten free diet not only gives you time away from a highly allergenic food, but also allows your digestive tract to heal and not be so irritated from inflammation all of the time.

If you have any health problems, give gluten free a try with The Healthy Urban Kitchen
as your guide.

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

Celiac Disease (CD) is an autoimmune disease caused by a genetic inability to digest the protein portion of many common grains- including those in wheat. This undigested part of the grain, called gluten, is then attacked by the body’s own immune system, causing inflammation and damage to the intestines where nutrients are absorbed. Standard Celiac Disease Symptoms, also known as Gluten Sensitivity, include abdominal pain and weight loss; but rarely is the same from patient to patient. Gluten Sensitivity’s ‘Mind Boggling’ array of symptoms often seem to be completely unrelated to the digestive tract, and in fact some presentations of the disease, strangely have a complete lack of inflammation in the gut. With an individual’s symptoms ranging anywhere from the inability of a woman to conceive, to anemia, to dementia- it can be a puzzle that many doctors have been unable to figure out.

In fact, the diagnosis is missed so often that one study showed that it takes an AVERAGE of 5 years from the time of first onset of symptoms to getting the diagnosis of celiac disease; some studies show that it takes up to 10 years to get diagnosed! This is tragic considering that effective non-drug treatment is simply the avoidance of gluten in the diet. Missing this diagnosis could be understood if there were little research on these ‘atypical presentations’, but there are thousands of studies showing that Gluten Sensitivity is rampant. Dr. Alessio Fasano of the University of Maryland Medical Center believes that it is missed so often and is such a huge health issue, that mass screenings should be instituted. He states emphatically that, “CD is one of the most frequent genetically based diseases of humankind”!

So, what symptoms should doctors be looking for in order to consider the diagnosis of Gluten Sensitivity? The research is pretty clear; virtually ANY chronic problem, whether there is a reason for it or not, should make a clinician think that they are Celiac Disease Symptoms. ANYTHING AT ALL! The conclusions from many different research articles prove this point:

-”Much more attention must be given, particularly to the finding of anemia, to a possible early indicator of CD”

- “The majority of people with CD are symptom-free adults; the remainder are prone to a bewildering variety of signs and symptoms, ranging from infertility to type 1 diabetes.”

-”Neurologic syndromes may be the presenting extraintestinal manifestation of gluten sensitivity with or without intestinal pathology. These include migraine, encephalopathy, chorea, brain stem dysfunction, myelopathy, mononeuritis multiplex, Guillain-Barre like syndrome, and neuropathy…”

-”The prevalence of celiac disease in osteoporosis is high enough to justify a recommendation for serologic screening of all patients with osteoporosis”

-”Strict adherence to the Gluten Free Diet seems to be the only possibility of preventing a subset of rare but very aggressive forms of cancer.”

Other studies show that the damage and inflammation in the intestines caused by Gluten Sensitivity is the primary cause of most autoimmune diseases- no matter what name that autoimmune disease happens to go by. Other diseases that are possibly just Celiac Disease symptoms are: chronic fatigue syndrome, gall bladder disease, liver disease, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, depression, psychiatric problems, epilepsy, skin conditions, obesity, alcoholism, recurrent pancreatitis, lymphoma, arthritis, and many others. Even more importantly, these problems are not just ‘associated’ with celiac disease, but they nearly all show IMPROVEMENT with a gluten free diet.

Despite thousands of studies and dozens of awareness groups promoting testing and diagnosis of Gluten Sensitivity and Celiac, it is still just being missed entirely by most doctors. And desperate patients who take matters into their own hands and feel better on a gluten free diet are often simply ignored, scorned or worse by their clinicians. Hopefully the future will bring more education to doctors who are still so obviously unaware of the devastating effects of this disease and the lasting positive effects that a simple gluten free diet can bring.

Do you want to wait years to find out that your symptoms were all because of Gluten Sensitivity when you could have a solution to your health problems with some simple changes in your diet ?

Resources for Gluten Free Eating:

Essential Gluten Free Guide- Holds your hand and walks you step by step through the best way to go Gluten Free
The Paleo Diet cookbook- Delicious Gluten Free Meals. You won’t even know what you are supposed to be missing!

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

Question:

I have a strong suspicion I have a gluten intolerance or Celiac Disease.
I haven’t yet been tested, but have felt much better on gluten free diet until recently.
But then I had a root canal about a month and a half ago and it went well.
I had another several weeks ago which also went well until my tooth broke
before the permanent filling could be put in. Within a few days I began getting
my old symptoms back. I tried to figure out what I was eating that was causing it,
but it was getting more severe. After a few weeks, I went to get the tooth
fixed at which time the root canal filling was removed and a filling was put in place.
I almost immediately started to feel better, but symptoms are gradually returning again.
Is it possible the root canal filling that was used has gluten in it, and the one that
remains is now leaking into my system?
I tried to find any info, but have had no success.
What do you think?

Thanks in Advance:
Laurel in Pennsylvania

ANSWER:
Hi Laurel,

While I think that it is likely that you are gluten sensitive because you felt better on a gluten free diet, I DON’T think that it’s very likely that you’re filling has gluten in it and that that is what is making you feel bad. What I think is happening is one of two things, or a combination of both.

The first possibility is that the material from your fillings, which INVARIABLY contain either Mercury or Bisphenol A or a whole host of other chemical possibilities are leaking into your bloodstream from your mouth making you feel ill.

The second possibility – and more likely in my opinion- is that a bacterial infection in your tooth roots is leaking pretty much directly into your bloodstream and making you feel ill. I base this theory on the fact that you:

a) Felt terrible when your tooth broke. When your tooth broke, it likely released all sorts of bacteria into your bloodstream.

b) You felt better when it first got fixed because your dentist likely cleaned out the root of a lot of infection- and you might have even taken some antibiotics to clean up some of the infection.

c) You began to feel worse a couple of weeks after your root canal was fixed again.

If you think about this, you “needed” a root canal because you had an INFECTION in your tooth root, right? Well, the ONLY way that you can get rid of an infection completely is to sterilize an area, right? Well, there is virtually no possible way to sterilize the root of a tooth. It is living soft, delicate tissue. The dentist will CLEAN that area and use disinfectant, but that is a far cry from sterilization. So, when he cleaned out the root and then placed a filling on top of that, he essentially placed a cap on top of an infected hole.

Root canals are almost ALWAYS infected and will nearly always be dripping bacteria into your bloodstream forever. If the dentist did not clean the area extremely well, then the infection will grow and drip right into your bloodstream which is right at the base of your tooth. Your dentist likely won’t agree with this and will tell you that you couldn’t possibly get sick from the bacteria at your root base. But be sure to ask your dentist if he completely sterilized the root of your tooth.

Your dentist will tell you that it is impossible to sterilize the root of your tooth. So, there you have the answer. If the root can’t be sterilized, then what is to stop bacteria from reproducing. And there is a good blood supply to the root of every tooth, so where is the infection supposed to go if it can’t come out the cavity? It will go into your jawbone or your bloodstream.

And if you have a constant stream of bacteria into your bloodstream, could you feel sick? Of course you could. Laurel, you may want to look up “Biologic Dentists” or “Biologic Dentistry” in your area and find a good biologic dentist that might be able to help you with this situation.

In the meantime, it sounds as though you are having some MAJOR issues with your teeth if you have needed 2 root canals in a short period of time. That is NOT normal! And if you do have gluten sensitivity, it’s likely that you have not been absorbing nutrients well for the past few YEARS and are likely deficient in many different nutrients- many of which are responsible for building teeth and keeping your immune system strong.

So, I urge you to learn what the dental industry doesn’t want you to know:

That you CAN rebuild your teeth
AND
That there are better ways to deal with issues that need a root canal

Money by the Mouthful is the end result of Dr. Robert O. Nara, DDS’s passion to teach people that they DON’T have to suffer with dental problems and that there are alternatives to dental procedures that your dentist is just NOT going to tell you about! If you are having dental problems, you really need to download this Ebook today!

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

When we speak of disease and health, we often think that people who are healthy are ‘lucky’ and people who are unhealthy as ‘unlucky’. But the debate is beginning to tip towards the fact that environmental factors influence genetics more than we can ever imagine, and luck of the genes has less to do with health than environmental factors. Vitamin D as an environmental factor in our health is not debated, only HOW MUCH of a factor in our health is what is debated.

Vitamin D deficiency has long been associated with osteoporosis, but most of us think of osteoporosis as starting in older age. Since women are particularly affected, it’s often that vitamin d and calcium supplementation is begun after menopause to help prevent the associated fractures of osteoporosis. But women in their pre reproductive and reproductive years need to be supplemented too, less for themselves, but more for the health of their offspring. Several studies have shown that Levels of Vitamin D During Pregnancy can determine bone mass and risk of fracture as an adult! Disturbingly, Deficiency of vitamin d and pregnancy is rampant among pregnant women and it could be having devastating consequences on the youngest generations.

Bone strength isn’t the only health issue that seems to be already determined by our mother’s intake of vitamin D and pregnancy, our mental health is also affected. Schizophrenia has long been associated with vitamin d levels due to its odd characteristic of occurring more frequently in those born in winter or early spring. This association is not just coincidental; vitamin D levels in the womb affect the health of the baby, even much later in life. Even a child’s lungs are affected by a mother’s vitamin D levels. Asthma, a common childhood problem, has been linked to Low Vitamin D and Pregnancy. The Journal ‘Clinical and Experimental Allergy’ published an article entitled, ‘Childhood asthma is a fat-soluble vitamin deficiency disease.’ which outlines this strong link between vitamin D and childhood asthma.

An even larger health problem in the younger generations could also be the result of maternal vitamin D deficiency or Deficiency of Vitamin D and Breastfeeding. ‘Syndrome X’ is a collection of signs that include:

Increased insulin resistance
High cholesterol
High blood pressure
Central obesity

Together, these problems give sufferers an increased risk of acquiring diabetes and heart attacks later in life. Children are acquiring Syndrome X at such an alarming rate and at younger and younger ages, that public health policies and awareness campaigns are being put into place in many areas to deal with this dangerous problem. None of these, however, mention vitamin D supplementation as a possible solution to this growing problem.

These diseases are only the beginning of the conditions that researchers have put forward as problems of Low Vitamin D and pregnancy. Multiple sclerosis, diabetes, breast cancer, colon cancer, autism and autoimmune disorders have all been associated with vitamin d deficiency and are candidates for future long term studies of how vitamin d deficiency in infants could affect their incidences in later life.

Unfortunately, these long term studies, even if started immediately, wouldn’t yield conclusive results for decades. In the meantime, women are simply not getting enough vitamin D during pregnancy. With current recommendations in the US for pregnant women at only 800 IU’s per day, this is in stark contrast to many studies that urgently recommend dosages of between 4000 IU’s to 6500 IU’s a day for pregnant and lactating women. This suggests that a woman needs Vitamin D Supplements in an amount eight times higher than she is getting in order to prevent vitamin d deficiency in infants and herself to prevent many of these chronic illnesses that plague so many of us, and that are growing by leaps and bounds in ever younger and younger children.

With all of the research that is coming out about vitamin D and so many other diseases, it’s likely that the link between vitamin d and pregnancy and diseases such as diabetes and cancer later in life is much stronger than we know. But without swift policy changes by medical associations and governments the spread of these vitamin D related diseases will continue to rise, even as these incredibly inexpensive Vitamin D Supplements are literally just a click away.

Resources

Vitamin D Supplements for Adults – Now in a clinically useful 5000 IU Supplement
Sunshine Mist Vitamin D Spray- Infants and children need Vitamin D too. This spray is GREAT for kids. No pills to swallow.

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com