Thoughts On My Vitamin D Deficiency
I’m now convinced that the cause of my bad springs and substantial absences from school as a child, and periods of bad health since, is due to a periodic vitamin D deficiency.
I suffer from several of the same symptoms as my father, who was most likely the parent from whom I inherited coeliac disease.
As a child, I didn’t go out in the son much, as I think I found it a bit painful and I burned. My father was the same in those days and was very much a man for his garage or shed. He only ventured out to smoke his pipe.
The problems dropped, when I went to Liverpool University and met my future wife. But then she would drag me out into the sun for a walk, with great regularity.
When I was diagnosed as a coeliac, I thought this would be the end of it all. And it did get a bit better, with the bonus that I could now sunbathe without burning. I also stopped being bitten by mossies.
Since the death of my wife, my stroke and moving to London, the bad springs and a lot of the other symptoms have returned.
But no-one could say the weather in London and it seems much of North and Central Europe has been very sunny over the last few years.
I even took a holiday in Croatia for some sun, but in My Home Run From Dubrobnik, I saw probably a day and a half of sun at most!
I’m now on vitamin D3 tablets and they appear to help.
But I think, what I need is a good scientific book on vitamin D, how it is absorbed by the body and what it actually does.
So much of what I get told seems to only have vague science behind it!
If I could find a top class University, where they were doing serious research into vitamin D, I’d go halfway round the world to talk to them.
Vitamin D Deficiency And Atrial Fibrillation
I’ve just found a paper in the International Journal of Cardiology with this title.
As according to two cardiologists in Cambridge, the reason I had my stroke was atrial fibrillation, I should discuss this with a cardiologist.
I think my story goes something like this.
- For some reason, I didn’t like the sun and kept out of it.
- When I was diagnosed as a coeliac, I went gluten-free and didn’t get added Vitamin D in my food.
- But C dragged me off to the sunnier climes, where now I can stay in the sun without problem.
- When she died, I retreated into myself and didn’t go to the sun.
- So did I get low vitamin D?
- My GP thought so and I decided to drive around in my Lotus with the top down.
- I eventually, had the stroke, I’d probably been just missing since C died.
- Atrial fibrillation was diagnosed and it was said to have caused the stroke.
- Warfarin has been prescribed to protect me!
I’ve added sun and vitamin D for good measure.
Until I can prove otherwise, my father who gave me coeliac disease, wasn’t so lucky and died of a stroke.
Did he have atrial fibrillation and low vitamin D?
My Endoscopy
This is an old post from an earlier blog, which is dated October the third, 2003, but I’ve been asked about it a couple of times lately, so I thought I’d copy it over.
Introduction
I have written this in quite a lot of detail so that it can help others who are undergoing the procedure.
The only thing I might say, is that I am a reasonably fit, fifty-six year old, who has a strong scientific training. So on the one hand, my body should be able take most things and on the other I do have a basic understanding of what’s going on!
Before
I wasn’t that sure to expect when I went for a endoscopy.
I am also not the bravest where hospitals or operations are concerned!
I had the instructions, which said that there was a 1-in-10,000 chance of something going wrong, that I was to wear comfortable easily washed clothes and that I wasn’t to eat or drink anything for six hours before.
It also said that there was the choice of a sedative or a throat spray and if I had the first I wouldn’t be able to drive, use machinery or drink alcohol for 24 hours.
Hmm!
Would I be brave enough to have the throat spray, as it would also mean I wouldn’t have to find someone to go with me? Not easy when your wife works full time and your children live miles away!
It said phone if you wanted any help. So I did!
I was given a direct line by the receptionist and after a couple of tries, I got through to a helpful nurse who said that most people are alright with the throat spray.
So it was to be the throat spray!
I also remembered the advice given to me by a scientist who created some of the world’s best anaesthetics. He said to avoid them at all costs!
I didn’t sleep too badly the night before, but I did get up about six.
Nothing unusual here, as Celia is often out by half past on her way to all Courts east, west, north and occassionally south. I also find that the early morning is the best time to work!
But I did want to have a last drink of a cup of tea before the requisite six hours of abstinance arrived at half past six.
It was a long wait, as I am one of those who just like others have a thinking cigarette, when I work I have a thinking drink, or a snack. I did bite my fingers a bit, until I realised that could count as food!
In the end I gave up on work about twelve and disappeared off on a series of useful, but on the whole rather time-wasting errands.
I had tried to arrange a game of tennis before, but that all came to nothing. I was dressed for the game though, as the clothes fitted the requirements.
I drove all the way to Bury St. Edmunds to collect my spare car keys from last night and then wasted a good fifteen minutes talking to the salesman about the new higher powered MG-ZT-T-230. (I would have bought one a few years ago, but now cars are just a means of getting around. Well not quite, but they aren’t so important!)
I then picked up the enlargements of the family photo taken at Imogen’s christening. I think I paid a cheque into the bank!
All things that needed to be done, but they could have waited until the Saturday!
Finally, about two I parked the car in the lane that leads to Addenbrookes.
When I visit the hospital I tend to do that, as on a sunny day (It was!) it is a nice walk and you avoid all the hassle of finding a car parking space.
Procedure
If you don’t know Addenbrokes it is not the most attractive of buildings, being a 60’s, brutal construction designed by an architect, who probably designed down to a cost, rather than up to a standard.
It’s also rather a maze, so when I entered the Out-Patients I looked around for someone to give me directions. As when I came for my first appointment, I was given proper directions to Endoscopy, which seemed to be rather an afterthought for the building, reached up what looked to be a fire-escape!
As I had forgotten to bring some suitable reading, I bought a magazine. I think it was Autocar.
Often when I go to the doctors, I’ll take a rather academic book, so that I don’t get treated like an idiot. Also something with substance and length as that seems to ensure I get seen quickly!
I waited for perhaps half an hour until twenty minutes after my appointment before I was seen by a nurse, who then asked whether I was taking the sedative. I said not, but I got the impression that most of the others were taking one.
She also said that as I have a crown on a front tooth, I was less likely to break that if I had a spray, as I wouldn’t bite so hard on the mouth piece through which the probe would pass.
Then at about a quarter past three, I was called in by the doctor.
The doctor, a Mr. Hardwick, again asked about the sedative and then outlined the procedure.
I did question him, as to why the consent form asked so many silly questions! I really don’t care at all about what happens to my body after I die, so long as it gets the respect it deserves. If it deserves any that is!
A few minutes later and he walked me through to the room where it was to be carried out.
Now I realised that except for the facts that a camera was being passed down my throat, through the stomach and into the duodenum, before a biopsy was to be taken, I didn’t know much else.
Would I be standing, sitting or lying? How big was the camera tube? After all I did know that sword swallowers appeared to take something substantial!
It’s funny, but whether because I was apprehensive or whether I didn’t want to interfere with the procedure, I didn’t take a look at the equipment out of my normal rather excessive curiosity. All I can remember is that it was made by Olympus. I hoped it gave better pictures than the last camera I bought of that make!
I was told that the throat spray was rather unpleasant and tasted of bananas. Why should bananas be unpleasant? I’ve always eaten at least one a day since I first saw one at the age of about five! (There weren’t any in London for several years after the war!)
The spray was fine and after a couple of sprays, I could feel my throat going numbish. But I still had full control and could swallow as required.
I was then asked to lie on the trolley and then I was turned onto my side.
Other instructions were given to try and swallow the probe and also to breathe normally. He also said that it was easier as I had not had the sedation and could co-operate with him. That sounded very reasonable!
I now had the mouth piece between my teeth and the doctor started to pass the probe down into my stomach. The probe was perhaps three to four millimetres in diameter. In other words considerably smaller than the occassional mint imperial, that I have swallowed by accident.
At this point, I should say that I am predominately a mouth breather and even with the mouth piece in, I was still breathing almost normally through my mouth, rather than the nose. Although I was trying to use it! I don’t think I was very successful!
As the tube progressed, I was asked to swallow and after a few attempts was able to progress it down my throat. I didn’t swallow more than about six to eight times.
I had also been worried because dentists have told me I have a strong gag reaction. It didn’t seem to be a problem!
Obviously, I was quiet and couldn’t talk. However, I did have a rather macabre thought as to whether they used the same probe if they were looking from the other end! I never asked the question!
It wasn’t that unpleasant and was no worse that having teeth drilled! It was a lot quieter and I only dribbled a very small amount.
It was also certainly better than the day in a dentist’s surgery in Smithdown Road in Liverpool, when I had the first crown fitted on my front tooth. I can still remember the smell of burning teeth!
I had been warned to expect wind as the probe entered my stomach, but really didn’t notice much and after perhaps two to three minutes the probe was in the duodenum. I hadn’t felt anything inside as the probe progressed. Was this due to the spray? I suspect it was.
So the first part was over and it wasn’t too bad at all! I hadn’t broken out in a sweat or anything like that, but it did find a bruise later on my knee, where the other one had been pushing into it, whilst I was trying to lie still!
They then took two biopsies by passing a tool down the probe. I thought I might have felt a slight prick as each was taken, but it may be that I was looking for something!
And that really was that!
A couple of minutes later, the probe had been removed and I was sitting on the trolley.
I was told that everything appeared normal and that they had got a couple of good biopsies. What constitutes a good one?
I was then told not to drink or eat anything before twenty to four and after a few minutes sitting on a chair, I walked out of the department, out of the hospital and back to my car.
My throat seemed slightly sore, but after a drink and some crisps as I filled up with petrol at the garage, everything seemed fine!
I ate a hearty meal that evening.
Conclusions
I think the first thing I should say, is that everything at Addenbrookes was very professional and I would have no complaint as to care.
Or any complaint about anything else for that matter!
Take the case of phoning before the procedure for advice about the throat spray!
This should always be available and I certainly found it very helpful as looking back, I think I made the right decision to have the spray rather than the sedative :-
1. The very fact that I was awake and fully conscious during the procedure must be a help to the staff, as they could tell me to do things and at least I could try to carry them out!
2. This must make the procedure quicker and more efficient, especially as there is no need for a recovery bed.
3. The nurse also told me that as I have full control of my jaw, which I wouldn’t have with the sedative, that there is less chance of dental damage.
Now having crowns fitted is definitely not pleasant!
4. But the biggest advantage to me of the throat spray, is that I walked out a few minutes later, drove home and within half an hour I was almost back to normal.
There is only one thing I would do to improve the system and that is to give more information to the patient.
If I had known more before I went to the hospital and had perhaps read an experience like this, I would have been less apprehensive.
It probably didn’t make any difference to me in the end, but someone of a more nervous disposition than myself, might just decide to be sedated rather than choose the spray.
So looking back about a week later as I write this, it doesn’t seem terrifying at all and I would recommend anybody who is asked to have a endoscopy, to have one without worrying too much!
And have the throat spray rather than the sedative!
Just relax and let the doctors and nurses get on with the job!
The Curse On My Family
Something has dripped through the genes and behaviour in my family, that could well explain, factors that contributed to the early death of my paternal grandfather and my youngest son; George.
I have known six of my relatives well; my father and mother, my father’s mother and my three sons.
I will ignore my mother and grandmother, as both lived to their eighties, which is probably good by any standards.
I shall also ignore my eldest son, as I am not in contact with him.
I believe that my coeliac disease, which must be inherited, came from my father and both my late wife and myself believed that if any of our three children were coeliac, it would have been George. But neither my father or George were ever properly tested.
As a child, I was sickly and I was always being taken to the doctor and I had endless tonics and potions.
It only gradually improved when I got to about ten or so and why it did has never been successfully explained. But I can remember being off-school for large parts of the Spring term several times.
I can remember a couple of times in summers, when I was about eight or so, suddenly giving up playing with friends and going home to watch television or play with my Meccano. I think I just found it too hot or perhaps my eyes didn’t like the sun.
In some ways, I was just following my father’s behaviour, which generally involved tinkering with his car in the garage or working in his print works. He would occasionally sit in the sun to smoke his pipe, but I never ever saw him strip off on a beach say.
From about seven, he always took me to work at the weekend and I enjoyed myself doing real jobs, like setting type, collating paper and pulling proofs.
If it left me with any psychological traits, it was that hard work is good for you!
But it kept me out of the sun.
I got married to C at twenty-one and within four years we had three sons. In some ways this got me out in the sun more and perhaps in my late twenties, when we were living in the Barbican, I started to experience better health. I was probably getting more sun, as in those days, I tended to cycle across to Great Portland Street regularly. But C used to drag me out in the sun.
Over the next thirty years or so, my health often tended to deteriorate in the winter, but I think it is true to say, it improved marginally, when the boys grew up, as we started to take more holidays in the sun.
Then in 1997, when I was fifty, I had a particularly bad winter and a very elderly locum decided I needed a blood test to see if I lacked anything. It was the first time my blood had been tested and I was found to be totally lacking in vitamin B12.
I struggled on, with nurses injecting me with B12 every month or so, until my GP sent me to Addenbrooke’s. After another set of blood tests, they said, I was probably coeliac and this was confirmed by endoscopy.
I certainly felt a lot better on a gluten-free diet.
I was also now able to walk and work in the sun and sunbathe without getting burnt. Although, avoiding the sun was still burned into my behaviour, so I often retreated under an umbrella.
Another change was that whereas before going gluten-free I was always bitten and C never was, after going gluten-free, the reverse was true.
I only remember one bad winter from that period and that was when C had breast cancer in 2003-2004, which I think was a sunless winter. We didn’t have our long winter holiday in the sun and I paid the consequence with plantar faciitis, which some reports claim is linked to vitamin D deficiency.
After she died, my problems to a certain extent returned and my GP actually suggested I wasn’t getting enough sun. So in all weathers, I drove around in my Lotus Elan with the top down, to make sure that I got the sun.
I felt a lot better.
If I look at George, he also had my father’s and my behaviour of avoiding the sun. As he smoked heavily, whilst he wrote his music in the dark, was it any wonder he got the pancreatic cancer that killed him?
The curse on my family is of course coeliac disease, which before diagnosis, seems to make us avoid the sun. My father and George certainly did and I would have done before diagnosis without C’s constant persuasion. Now though as I showed in An Excursion To Lokrum, I have no problems in the sun and rarely use any sun screen.
We’ve had some miserably weather over the last few months in London and I come to the conclusion, that I just haven’t got enough vitamin D.
I’ve also only recently found out, that gluten-free foods are not fortified, as regular ones are. So I don’t get any vitamin D through my food.
An Excursion To Lokrum
As I’d missed all of the full day trips, I took the boat to Lokrum and had a walk round for three hours or so.
Before I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free, I couldn’t have done a walk like this.
It was almost, as if my blood couldn’t move the heat away fast enough from my skin and it all overheated. But once, gluten-free and with blood full of B12, the heat transfer was better.
I used to burn badly some years ago, but I don’t now. After Lokrum my face was just a healthy colour.
Intriguingly, my father, who was probably an undiagnosed coeliac, rarely went in the sun and was very much a man for wasting time in his garage or shed.
My son who died, appeared to me to be the most likely to be coeliac and he was always hidden away working on his music.
Vitamin D And Me!
On Tuesday, there was this article on the BBC, which was entitled Vitamin D ‘heals damaged hearts’. This was said.
Vitamin D supplements may help people with diseased hearts, a study suggests.
A trial on 163 heart failure patients found supplements of the vitamin, which is made in the skin when exposed to sunlight, improved their hearts’ ability to pump blood around the body.
The Leeds Teaching Hospitals team, who presented at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, described the results as “stunning”.
I have been discussing this with two of Europe’s top cardiologists and we’ve come to the conclusion, that I don’t get enough vitamin D.
And would you believe low vitamin D can cause; bad nails, conjunctivitis and plantar fasciitis.
I have all three!
One cardiologist pointed out that gluten-free bread and breakfast cereals aren’t fortified with vitamin D, like normal ones are.
No-one; coeliac, doctor or dietician, had ever told me that before!
So I get my vitamin D from the sun!
But as the devil has switched it off this winter, no wonder I’m in poor health!
That woman doesn’t like me!
On the other hand, I’m a London Mongrel of German Jewish and French Huguenot roots, with quarters of stubborn Devonian and solid Northants yeoman stock thrown in. A large proportion of my ancestors are also real East Enders and of course my father was a genuine Cockney.
So I hope I can give her a fight!
Incidentally, this winter, I’ve never found so many other people suffering from plantar fasciitis, so are we all suffering from a lack of sun and therefore vitamin D. Two of the sufferers were people, who had indoor jobs, that involved a lot of standing and walking.
Intriguingly, the only other time, I had bad plantar fasciitis was the winter of 2004/2005. I’m still looking for data on that winter’s weather, but this article on the BBC from 2006 says this.
Deaths in England and Wales fell to 25,700 last winter, a decline of 19% on the previous year.
Office for National Statistics data shows the rate, which hit 31,640 in 2004/2005, is back to similar levels as the previous four years.
Statisticians look at deaths between December and March, and compare them to those during the rest of the year.
I shall not be surprised if 2015/16 has been a bad winter for the deaths of the elderly.
For myself, I’ve started taking a vitalimn D supplement as I have been advised.
I’d sit in the sun, if that woman would let it out!
You might ask, why I don’t go to the sun for a week, as I can certainly afford it.
But when you don’t like taking holidays in the sun on your own and can’t walk long distances to explore interesting sites because of the plantar fasciitis, you’re stumped!
Rain, Beautiful Rain!
I’m feeling so much better today and it must be the break in the weather.
My face and beard doesn’t feel so dry, my gut would score at least 9/10 and my nails feel like real ones. The muck pouring down my throat has eased too!
Strangely, my INR was 2.8 on Wednesday, 2.7 yesterday and 2.1 today. It goes up and down with the weather.
London Air Ambulance Gets A Brain Scanner
The BBC are running a story this morning about the London Air Ambulance having a portable brain scanner and that they are able to scan injured patients on the way to hospital.
I’ve had a few brain scans in my time, but I can’t imagine one of the machines that have scanned me, being air-transportable in anything less than a C-130 Hercules.
But search the Internet and you find the device. It’s called an InfraScanner. It works using the same infra-red spectrum as a television remote control.
This superb piece of medical engineering, or others based on the same technology, must end up in the bag of every A&E doctor, or those who work in areas where there is a high risk of brain injuries, like sporting events or combat zones.
Fasciitis In My Foot
I have got fasciitis in my right foot. It has nothing to do with my current conditions, as I have had it at odd times over my lifetime.
The last time was probably about twelve or fifteen years ago and it was a lot worse than my current bout.
A chiropodist and my doctor have both recommended rolling a cold drinks can with my foot.
I keep the tin in the fridge. Incidentally, I chose the tomatoes as it is more robust than say a can of Coke.
Doing it on a carpet is easier too!
Let’s hope it all works!
Incidentally, are there any other words with a double-i in the middle? You have a few plurals like radii with the letters at the end.
Sounds like a Pointless question to me!
Why The London Tramlink Should Be Extended To The Royal Marsden Hospital
One of my Google Alerts picked up this article in the Sutton Guardian entitled Bunker for breakthrough cancer therapy machine could fit 24 Routemaster buses.
It is about the creation of a concrete bunker at the Royal Marsden Hospital to house a cross between an MR Linac machin which is decribed like this here on the Institute for Cancer Research web site.
The MR Linac combines two technologies – an MRI scanner and a linear accelerator – to precisely locate tumours, tailor the shape of X-ray beams in real time, and accurately deliver doses of radiation even to moving tumours.
All this leads to more and more patients going to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton to get treatment.
As many will not be in the best of health and would not relish a stressful journey, surely now is the time to build extension A of the London Tramlink to Sutton and the Hospital. This map shows the current proposal.
St. Helier Tramlink
The Royal Marsden Hospital is South of Sutton.
As Sutton is a Thameslink station, this Tramlink extension will give access to the Royal Marsden from a large area of London and the South East.
The Anonymous Widower 