Taking a D3 supplement, even in small amounts, seems to cause a horrible insomnia for me. I have problems with sleep even without it, but on D3 it gets a lot worse, I sleep like 3 hours per night. I’m like 80-90% sure it’s D3, when I take it it gets worse, a few days after I stop it gets better.
Do you have any ideas on what could cause this and how could I fix it? I already take magnesium and choline, and I take D3 in the morning, but that don’t seem to help much. Melatonin doesn’t do anything, it gets me to sleep in the evening, but then I wake up anyway.
I used to take calcium-magnesium-zink supplement, not sure if it was durig the time I took D3. Could lack of zink be an issue, should I try it?
I don’t know if I need it, never took the blood test, I tried it based on all the artiles about how good it is and how most people are deficient in it. Also I live in a cold climate and definitely don’t go out enough, so I don’t get a lot of sunlight.
I think insomnia starts gradually and progressively gets worse after a few days, maybe a week, my hypothesis was that D3 was building up, apparently it has a very long half life. I took about 2000-3000 IU, it’s not that much, right?
I didn’t try K2 supplement, but I’ve just googled and turns out spinach and kale have a lot of K, and I eat a lot of those.
K2 you cannot get from spinach or kale. Only from fermented natto, cabage but mostly from animal fat in brie and gouda cheese, organ meats, eggs, butter, milk and meat but ONLY from grass fed animals (K1 transforms to K2 when animals eat grass). Brie and Gouda could be from milk that is not from grass fed animals since in these 2 types of cheese bacteria produces the K2.
Whether something is a lot depends on your baseline. Mainstream researchers would say that’s a lot as it’s 250% of the RDA of D3. From my perspective it however isn’t a lot.
Spinach and kale contain K1 and not K2. You could still be K2 deficient if you get a lot of K2.
Vitamin A is also plausible but given that too much Vitamin A is bad (on average Vitamin A supplements increase the death rate) I wouldn’t supplement it in a targeted way without blood tests.
Non lichen based D3 supplements have been found to contain toxic levels of D3 per pill. 200000ius per pill instead of 2000iu. It’s in the scientific literature.
Insomnia is due to D3 inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis and the production of PGD2, which induces sleep.
After reading a bit about Vitamin D3, I also thought that you can justify taking Vitamin D3 in the morning this way.
I however had to rewrite my post because it doesn’t seem to be as easy. The Wikipedia article used to suggest that cholecalciferol gets directly transformed into calcitriol but it seems it has to be converted to calcifediol first. This process takes time and as a result it’s harder to make the argument about Vitamin D3 that you take (cholecalciferol) directly effecting the circadian rhythm.
Thank you for a great post!
Taking a D3 supplement, even in small amounts, seems to cause a horrible insomnia for me. I have problems with sleep even without it, but on D3 it gets a lot worse, I sleep like 3 hours per night. I’m like 80-90% sure it’s D3, when I take it it gets worse, a few days after I stop it gets better.
Do you have any ideas on what could cause this and how could I fix it? I already take magnesium and choline, and I take D3 in the morning, but that don’t seem to help much. Melatonin doesn’t do anything, it gets me to sleep in the evening, but then I wake up anyway.
Have you ever taken zinc. Are you sure you need vit D? Are you taking d with or without food?
I used to take calcium-magnesium-zink supplement, not sure if it was durig the time I took D3. Could lack of zink be an issue, should I try it?
I don’t know if I need it, never took the blood test, I tried it based on all the artiles about how good it is and how most people are deficient in it. Also I live in a cold climate and definitely don’t go out enough, so I don’t get a lot of sunlight.
I took D3 with light breakfast, in the morning.
I don’t know. (maybe Christiankl can comment here)
Zinc has been a factor for me.
Maybe get a blood test?
Thanks, Ill try zink again, and one day get around to doung blood test.
How fast do you get the insomnia after taking a supplement? What do you mean with small amounts?
Do you take K2?
I think insomnia starts gradually and progressively gets worse after a few days, maybe a week, my hypothesis was that D3 was building up, apparently it has a very long half life. I took about 2000-3000 IU, it’s not that much, right?
I didn’t try K2 supplement, but I’ve just googled and turns out spinach and kale have a lot of K, and I eat a lot of those.
K2 you cannot get from spinach or kale. Only from fermented natto, cabage but mostly from animal fat in brie and gouda cheese, organ meats, eggs, butter, milk and meat but ONLY from grass fed animals (K1 transforms to K2 when animals eat grass). Brie and Gouda could be from milk that is not from grass fed animals since in these 2 types of cheese bacteria produces the K2.
Whether something is a lot depends on your baseline. Mainstream researchers would say that’s a lot as it’s 250% of the RDA of D3. From my perspective it however isn’t a lot.
Spinach and kale contain K1 and not K2. You could still be K2 deficient if you get a lot of K2.
Vitamin A is also plausible but given that too much Vitamin A is bad (on average Vitamin A supplements increase the death rate) I wouldn’t supplement it in a targeted way without blood tests.
I learned the hard way to ONLY take D3 in the mornings. Otherwise if I wait it causes sleeplessness.
Non lichen based D3 supplements have been found to contain toxic levels of D3 per pill. 200000ius per pill instead of 2000iu. It’s in the scientific literature.
Insomnia is due to D3 inhibiting prostaglandin synthesis and the production of PGD2, which induces sleep.
Which paper in the scientific literature are you referring to?
What time did you take it? D3 is a strong cellular modulator of our clock genes https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/new-research-finds-activated-vitamin-d-regulates-genes-involved-in-the-circadian-rhythm/
After reading a bit about Vitamin D3, I also thought that you can justify taking Vitamin D3 in the morning this way.
I however had to rewrite my post because it doesn’t seem to be as easy. The Wikipedia article used to suggest that cholecalciferol gets directly transformed into calcitriol but it seems it has to be converted to calcifediol first. This process takes time and as a result it’s harder to make the argument about Vitamin D3 that you take (cholecalciferol) directly effecting the circadian rhythm.
Do you have any data on how long the conversion takes?
Unfortunately, I don’t.
I have opened a biology.SE question about the question of how long it takes till Vitamin D3 is biologically active a while ago.