I suffer from frequent colds. Just a few years ago, the frequency of my colds was threatening to become disabling. That’s what motivated me to use vitamin d aggressively.

I started 4 years ago by taking vitamin D supplements at 4000 IU/day. I immediately felt that it helped reduce the frequency, severity, and duration of my colds. That said, in February of 2011, I came down with a killer cold. It went into my lungs. I ran a 102 fever, and I was worried that I might need to go to the emergency room.

If you go to the vitamin D council, vitamin D advocates make claims like, “people who take 5000 IU/day of vitamin D just never get sick.” So much for that.

I’m devoted to vitamin D because of what’s happened to my teeth. My teeth have been sensitive my whole life, and I’ve dreaded teeth cleaning for as long as I can remember. My teeth were in dreadful shape, despite premium care. Today my teeth are in excellent health. I enjoy getting them cleaned. I haven’t had any new cavities. They actually feel healthy. My experience is backed by hard science from the 1930’s and 40’s demonstrating that vitamin D prevents cavities. My teeth are the only impact on my health that I know is caused by vitamin D. It took four full years to restore my teeth to good health. If you keep reading, you’ll see that I had to endure constant vitamin D related pain to get my teeth healthy. Had I been scared off by the side effects, I would have quit vitamin D long before my teeth were convincingly better.

I know that the truth is that I’m much healthier today than I was when I started my vitamin D campaign. In fact, I’m so much better that I remain hopeful that in a few years I will, indeed, be a healthy person who rarely gets sick. I also know that if vitamin D is turning me into a healthy person, it is doing it slowly. At the rate I’m going, it will be at least another 4 years before I can declare myself a healthy person.

For me, it is also the truth that I rightfully associate vitamin D with almost constant pain. For a couple of years, my hip would hurt and my eyes would burn right after I got into the sun. I would get scared and avoid the sun for a couple of days. At some point, I associated avoiding the sun for even one day with getting a cold. Eventually I came to the conclusion that when I’m healthy my hip and eyes don’t hurt when I get into the sun. What makes my hip and eyes hurt is getting into the sun while I’m getting a cold. Today, when my hip and eyes hurt from the sun, I go out and get even more sun. I can say for sure that the extra sun doesn’t make my hip and eyes hurt more, and that the pain goes away without avoiding the sun. I can also say for sure that if I stay out of the sun, my hip and eyes never hurt. So – exposure to sunshine is required for the pain. I really have no data to say whether or not cold viruses play a role as I have hypothesized.

I started by talking about the almost miraculous recovery of my teeth. I’ve had some other obvious, remarkable improvements. I haven’t been able to fly in an airplane without hurting my ears for as long as I can remember. The cabin compression/decompression process always plugged up at least one of my ears for at least a couple of days. Often, my ears would take several weeks to fully recover from flying. Today, I usually fly without discomfort.

Ten years ago I started having trouble with my sleep. At it’s worst, four years ago, I was nearly disabled by poor quality sleep. Today, I’m sleeping again like I when I was a teenager – maybe even better. I made two changes four years ago in my vitamin regimen. I added TTFD (a special thiamine supplement) and vitamin D. The TTFD has clinical support for curing sleep disorders. The hard evidence for vitamin D is, in my opinion, weak.

Four years ago I was having alot of trouble with my wrists. In addition, I had to stop running because bouncing my arms up and down caused tremendous pain. I started doing alot of things with both arms. If I used either arm too long, I would experience tremendous pain. I had to stop working long days at manual labor. Today, these problems are mostly gone despite the fact that I’m four years older.

Four years ago my posture was terrible and getting worse. Today, not only have I stopped the decline, but I’m actually straighter.

Four years ago my night vision got bad enough that I started to avoid driving at night whenever possible. Today, my night vision is fine.

I really don’t expect anyone to attribute my improved health to the supplements I use based on these stories. I wouldn’t expect anyone to calmly endure the pain I’ve associated with vitamin D in the hopes of achieving the benefits I’ve described. I completely understand why most people avoid the sun and think it is bad for them. I’m really not very optimistic about making progress.

There is a small group of people out there who would like to get more sun, and are frightened off by today’s culture of sun avoidance. I am optimistic that the internet can help me get the word out to them that they have much to gain, and little to lose, by following their desire to get into the sun.