Some of us are so used to chronic inflammation and pain that we assume that they are just a part of getting older. But they often result from a long-standing vitamin D deficiency. We should not ignore chronic inflammation and pain because, as we now know, persistent inflammation also contributes to chronic diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, stroke and cancer. Vitamin D deficiency causes increasing inflammation levels throughout the body, and can also give rise to pain in muscles, bones and joints.
Although you may be able to use pain-killing and anti-inflammatory drugs to help you get through your pain, your relief may come at a high price. Often the same drugs which ease your pain actually worsen the underlying condition and causes damage elsewhere in your body, through so-called side effects. Your body did not get sore because it was short of aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen! But it was short of something.
To get to the root of the problem, find out what your body is short of, and supply it. Vitamin D may not be the only nutrient in short-supply, but it is likely to be the single most-important shortage, especially if you are experiencing chronic pain in bones, joints or muscles. Vitamin D deficiency is at its worst during winter, when you cannot expose your skin to sunlight. This is probably the time when your pain and inflammation are at their worst.
We were meant to get our vitamin D from sunlight. Unless we eat oily fish every day, it is not possible to get enough vitamin D from diet alone. And the vitamin D in multivitamins is generally way short of what we need to maintain a healthy vitamin D blood level, let alone correct a long-standing deficiency. To do that we will need to take a vitamin D3 supplement. When you take an effective daily vitamin D dosage, it may still take two or three months to correct your vitamin D deficiency, so don't expect instant pain relief. But it is worth persevering. Not only will vitamin D help your pain and inflammation, it will improve your health in many other ways.
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