Vitamin D as a painkiller

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03.02.2024

If you suffer from chronic pain and there is little vitamin D in your blood, vitamin D supplementation may reduce your pain complaints. Supplementation will also improve your sleep and your quality of life.

Vitamin D as a painkiller

Study

In 2013, Army physicians from the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center published an experiment in the Clinical Journal of Pain in which 28 veterans served as test subjects. The veterans all had chronic pain in at least two different places on their bodies. They also all had low vitamin D levels.

Some veterans were deficient in vitamin D. They received a weekly supplement with 50,000 IU vitamin D2 for 3 months. Other veterans were insufficient. They received a daily supplement with 1,500 IU vitamin D3.

There was no placebo group.

Results
After supplementation, the subjects suffered significantly less pain. Moreover, they slept better. The latter is obvious: more chronic pain often means less sleep - less quality sleep.

Click on the table below for a larger version.

After the supplementation period, the test subjects rated their health and vitality higher. They also felt that they functioned better socially. This also could partly be a result of an improvement in sleep.

Conclusion
"Standardized vitamin D supplementation in veterans with multiple areas of chronic pain can be effective in alleviating their pain and improving sleep, and various aspects of quality of life", write the researchers.

"A randomized controlled clinical trial with different supplementation schedules would provide better understanding of the effects and limitations of vitamin D supplementation in this population and reveal its possible underlying mechanisms."

Source:
Clin J Pain. 2013 Apr;29(4):341-7.

More:
Supplement with vitamin D reduces pain in rheumatoid arthritis 01.03.2023

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