When Does A Patient Require Both Calcium and Vitamin D?

Featuring Dr. Wade, MD, FRCP
Rheumatologist
Duration: 1 minute, 49 seconds

If there is a concern about how much vitamin D you are taking or exposing to, you can actually measure your vitamin D level.  

The vitamin D level your doctor will measure is called 25-hydroxy vitamin D that is the important one to measure, not some of the other levels of vitamin D that could be measured as well.  

And if you actually measure that, you can actually determine whether you have enough vitamin D and that is a good way of checking if you do. So, there are some conditions where you are more concerned about calcium vitamin D absorption.

There are people that have a lactose intolerance or milk allergy in essence and those individuals should be sure they are getting extra calcium supplementation and they may also need some vitamin D supplementation as well to ensure calcium absorption.

The other common medical condition is celiac disease, which is increasingly seen in our population, now practically one percent of people have celiac disease. We recognize they may actually not absorb calcium well. So, people who have celiac disease, you want to ensure that they have extra calcium supplementation perhaps some extra vitamin D.  

These are one’s that you will probably want to measure vitamin D levels in to ensure they have sufficient vitamin D levels and simply giving extra calcium, giving extra vitamin D supplementation can easily correct that.

Pregnancy is another condition where you need to address the importance of calcium, vitamin D because after all you are making extra skeleton. There are guidelines and most different jurisdictions have guidelines as to how much extra calcium, vitamin D you would take during pregnancy.

So, like other vitamins that are important in pregnancy could be folic acid, calcium, vitamin D are other important supplements that a pregnant mother should be looking at making sure that they are having good amounts and appropriate amounts during pregnancy.

//www.healthchoicesfirst.com/practitioner/dr-john-wade-rheumatologist-vancouver-bc

Presenter: Dr. John Wade, Rheumatologist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Rheumatologist