Vitamin D deficiency correlation?

Hi all and happy new year,

I've done some searching on the boards and online and haven't come up Smith any decent conclusions so I figured I'd throw it out there. When reading my wife's lab results we discovered that her vitamin d levels were low around 4. It just so happens that is when her first ever CBC came back with low platelets. Her number back then was 139 previous to that it had been normal.

Have any of you discussed vitamin deficiencies with you care providers and what were the outcomes? Wondering if there was a link to help remove the "idiopathic" from her diagnosis.

Anyway that jus in advance.


Cheers


Jay

Jay:

Over the years, I've noticed that a lot of people with autoimmune disorders have low Vitamin D levels (and low B-12 and low ferritin, etc). It seems to come with the territory and is not limited to ITP. I've treated low Vitamin D myself...took a year and a half of high doses to get to 60. I had been taking OTC's prior to finding out I was low and apparently, it didn't do squat. There is a lot of research about low D and autoimmune disorders, but the latest research seems to indicate that treating low D can make the autoimmune disorder worse.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090408164415.htm

I'm not sure how much I believe that though and will continue to treat Vitamin D anyway. Low D is actually becoming epidemic in the US because of the use of sunscreens. I know a few people without autoimmune disorders who have low D levels.

At any rate, not all people with low D have ITP and treating low D levels does not seem to do anything for ITP.

The idiopathic has been removed from ITP. Recently, it has been renamed "immune thrombocytopenia".

Sandi,

Thanks for the article, even more interesting that she's got Type 1 Diabetes. Something new for me to go on a tangent on and do more research.

I really appreciate the info.

Jay, you are a great husband and friend to your wife doing all this great research! I'm so sorry for her struggles. My daughter has ITP and we are zoning in on Rituxin (being pushed there a bit by the hematologist) so ended up reading some of your threads.

I'm sure you know this, and I think Sandi mentioned it in a post in one of your threads, but autoimmune diseases sometimes run in families often and, once you get one, it's more likely to get another. My daughter has ITP. I have 2 autoimmune issues (hashimotos & lichen schlerosis, starting to show some arthritic stuff - all relatively easy to contend with compared to ITP), my brother, father, mother, grandfather, niece-- all autoimmune disease sufferers, though everyone has different diseases.)

Wishing you good luck and hope her platelets stay high with the rituxin.

More recent research is showing that Vitamin D helps to modulate the immune system:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540105.2015.1109612
Immunomodulatory vitamin D effects on regulatory T-cells and cytokines in an in vitro study on patients with systemic lupus erythematosus
The results indicated that vitamin D treatment increased the percentage of Treg cells, and the expression of Foxp3 and TGFβ, and decreased the expression of IL6 in SLE patients.

Brand new review article says, " In conclusion, vitamin D is reduced in autoimmune cytopenias and correlate with disease severity, supporting its possible protective role against the development of autoimmunity."

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568997216300635
Reduced 25-OH vitamin D in patients with autoimmune cytopenias, clinical correlations and literature review
Highlights
• Vitamin D is reduced and its receptor increased in autoimmune cytopenias.
• Vitamin D deficiency is associated with AIHA and ITP severity at onset.
• Low Vitamin D levels are associated with increased relapse rate in AIHA.
• Vitamin D inhibits anti-erythrocyte autoantibodies production in vitro

Autoimmunity Reviews - Available online 14 March 2016 - In Press, Uncorrected Proof

From what I've learned over the years, low vitamin D is quite common, particularly in northern latitudes and in the winter months. Most people who have low vitamin D do not develop ITP or other autoimmune disorders, though of course there are some who do. Correcting that deficiency is worthwhile, though generally does not help much with platelet counts in ITP.

My most recent hematologist checked my micronutrient status, found low B12 and folate, which were added to the low vitamin D and iron I already knew I had. He advised me to supplement, but not in the hope of restoring normal counts (though that would have been nice). My primary care doc regularly checks my micronutrient status, too, but that's because of a separate disorder I have that messes with my GI tract, impairing absorption.

I have the same problem. Chronic low Vitamin and mineral levels.

I suspect it's the connective tissue disorder at work, though yours is quite different from mine. I let my physicians test me, then supplement based on the results.

I do the same thing, although I find that once something goes down, I have to keep supplementing to keep it up. If I stop, it goes back down.

As odd as this sounds, I've found that Vitamin D gummies work as well as the high prescription doses. I've been buying those instead because they are cheaper. I eat 8,000 to 10,000 IU's a day though.

Interesting tidbit about gummies. I just swallow some 400 IU vitamin D capsules, and that keeps me in the normal range. I've not ceased supplementing to see how well I'd hold up.

I started taking adcal d3 twice a day when I was diagnosed with osteoporosis . That's 800IU a day. Initially I also took a 3 month course of vitamin d supplement 40,000 IU a week. No effect on platelet count

I had been supplementing with 800 IU's of OTC tablets daily for two years when I found out that my D was low. Apparently, it wasn't doing much. I never even bothered to ask my doctor to test it because I assumed it was fine. It wasn't. She put me on high dose for a few months and the count went up. About two years later I asked to be tested again and the count was down. Back on high dose. That kept happening until my doctor decided I should take it all the time (with monitoring). That's what I do now. We try to keep it around 60 considering the bone problems that Prednisone causes. It appears that it takes a large dose to keep me up, don't know why. That is one thing that I really try to keep up on.

Sandi, Did you notice feeling any difference between high and low counts?

ITP had already resolved for me by then. I was hoping that getting the Vitamin D level up would help with other symptoms though, but it didn't.

I didn't know vitamin D affected platelet counts either. I know it affects my insulin usage and bone mass. I vave been on 1000 mg OTC for a while and when this bottle is finished will be taking 5000 mg. Need to ask some questionsof docs.

Have you had your levels tested? Vitamin D can be dangerous if taken at high doses and it's not needed. You should talk to your doctors about it.