Vitamin D, a Controversy, That Could Improve Your Sleep

I Am Stephanie

Aug 01, 2024

It seems like I’ve had my latest vitamin D findings stirring in my head for quite a while now. I think AI helped me out with this more than I had intended because if you’ve been known to use the interwebs for research purposes as much as I do, you’re bound to be fed a steady stream of your curiosity related, research, search content, whether you wanted to be fed with it or not. And once I started watching podcast interviews featuring Dr. Stasha Gominak’s work on vitamin D, sleep, and gut health; a steady diet of her work kept popping up in my feed, keeping me busy learning more and more and more than I had ever expected to learn. Rather than posting links to these videos, I’ve decided to let you type her name into the U-tubes and choose something from the many options that come up. While I was being fascinated by Dominak’s sleep observations, the endocrinologists added their timely 2 cents to all of the vitamin D thoughts, and I found myself witnessing more D controversy on my social feeds than I ever thought was possible!

The panel suggests against routine laboratory testing for blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) in all the age groups and populations it studied, including adults with prediabetes, dark complexion, or obesity, as well as during pregnancy.
That was in large part because “there really is no data telling us what target vitamin D level should be aimed for to prevent disease,” Demay says.
To D or Not To D? What Questions Does the Latest Endocrine Society Guideline Answer About Vitamin D Supplements? - Endocrine News

And then, I had questions, lots of them; but I’m going to keep it to one for the sake of brevity- what if Dr. Gominak has some clinical and observational vitamin D blood level data that correlates with the kind of sleep quality in which healing takes place? As it turns out, she does!

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to post link you to death to make you more aware of the fact that many people with long covid have gut dysbiosis and sleep disturbances. I think cancer patients often experience these same problems, especially if things like chemo and radiation have been used to treat their tumors, so I thought, this is the post for us, and the endocrinologists will just have to be entitled to their own opinions.

If you’re interested in learning more about what Dr. Gominak has observed about our guts, and vitamins like D and the Bs; you can check out her webpage, here-

Vitamins for Sleep: The Natural Way to Restore Your Sleep - Dr. Gominak (drgominak.com)

If you’re interested in putting Dr. Gominak’s work into practice, you can learn more and maybe even sign up for her Right Sleep Program, here-

RightSleep Program - Dr. Gominak (drgominak.com)

In other news, I watched I Am Celine Dion the other day primarily because Dr. McMillon brought her up recently and not because I’ve ever been a huge fan of hers (although I appreciate her talent very much). Watching her experience with Stiff Person Syndrome gave me a very sincere appreciation of her performance at the Olympic opener in Paris. I am sure that anyone who has had their life changed by any illness can relate to Celine’s story, especially if you are no longer able to do some of the things that you have been known for or been defined by.

Uncovered: The Likely Real Reason Behind Celine Dion's Illness (substack.com)

Céline Dion - Love Again (Official 2024 Lyric Video) (youtube.com)

My Olympic after thoughts-

If people only knew how long it can take for a writer like me (Special Writing Olympics Participant) to write with something like what I have (long covid induced cognitive thought impediments that leave words on the tip of my tongue), they would probably appreciate my efforts long enough to toss me some sympathetic, compassionate, empathy; but not enough to get me upgraded to the pay grade A word log rhythms. I think (sometimes) not being able to find the word I’m looking for is turning me into a human thesaurus.

The chicken lady has some babies;

they’re going everywhere,

if she doesn’t watch out,

they are so little;

they will be in her hair.

Poem cred- My Cheery Yellow, Chin Up Buttercup, T-shirt Giving, Friend.

Sometimes the devil decimates the vegetable garden you have been growing from seed since February, with hail during a mini tornado, but the very next morning after that, God turns the decimation around and gives you 11 baby chicks (for free) and then your friend leaves poetic messages about it on your voicemail which makes you smile. True story- woke up Saturday morning to the sounds of a wicked thunderstorm. Looked out the window when I heard the hail popping against the windows (while shouting NO, NO, NO, to myself in my head) and noticed I could not see out very far in the storm, but I could see the torrential down pour, hail covering our deck, and wind that looked like it was swirling everything around outside. It left a mess; I’ll spare you the pictures of my broken garden and the tree leaves that it plastered on just about everything. I spent most of the day Friday, outside, working in my garden and enjoying it. In a matter of minutes on Saturday morning, the satisfaction of my hard work, and the beauty of it, was gone, and sadness filled my broken heart. But I woke up Sunday morning to find that we had been blessed with 11 chicks in our new chicken adventure- a new thing born out of the windy ash heap of stormy chaos, 11 unplanned chicks born in our back yard, born with no effort made on our part, other than giving their parents some of our woods to call home.
Chicken Babies - by Stephanie Schaible, MT (ASCP) (substack.com)

Garden Update- I’m happy to report that I began harvesting tomatoes and green peppers last week! Would post pics and try to one up Dr. Mardi’s garlic harvest, but I ate them before the thought occurred to me.

Leave me a comment and let me know you were here!

Leaving Death in the Dust

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