Swaying pink Vitamin D and Needing it for conception. Atomic please look.

[NurseViolet]

Hi Ladies,

I am new here but have browsed the forum and have been familiar with swaying for a few years now. I have 2 lovely boys 7.5 years and youngest will be 3 in a few days.

With my youngest I was taking high levels of vitamin d some time prior and around the time he was conceived. I was deficient at a level of 17 to start. I was prescribed 50,000 iu 1x/week. So I ended up taking a liquid supplement in divided doses : 10,000iu/day, 5 days/week. I dropped off after a few months. Prior to getting my levels checked, I had some chemical pregnancies in between ds1 and 2. Looking back i attribute this to my low vitamin d levels. I took a look back at my levels in 2016 and luckily a few days before yds conception(can you believe the luck) I had my vit d checked...it was 47.8ng/ml!!

Last year around April I had a pregnancy of unknown location. I went and got an us but they couldn't find anything in my tubes but a small cyst on my ovary and some fluid. My hcg levels never rose above 45. The only reason we knew it wasn't just a typical chemical was bc i tested positive a few days AFTER I had a normal period. I was testing during the 2ww after I ovulated that cycle with all negative tests. My period came on time and was moderate to heavy, which is my norm. I didnt think anything of it but I began spotting a few days after my period which I never do and knew something was off. I tested and got an immediate decent positive line at like cd 9/10. That situation was a few months ordeal monitoring my levels making sure they went back down to 0 and it took awhile actually, like a couple months when generally after I've had chemicals in the past, they go down quickly.

I say all this to say that I don't conceive...or have a viable pregnancy, unless my vitamin d levels are high or optimal anyway. I tried swaying before doing intermittent fasting for over a year, trying girl supps, doing the one attempt, cutting out boy friendly foods, losing weight(lost 17lbs) etc. I didn't get pregnant after the pregnancy of unknown location in April of last year and dropped the swaying around March of this year and still haven't.

Now I realize it's the vitamin d. I got my levels checked last month and I am at 35.4. I seem to need atleast a 40 to conceive...probably closer to 50. But I have two boys. Its like my body says no baby at all or as soon as i move into a sweet spot BAM pregnant with a boy.

I guess my question is how are women able to conceive with low vitamin d levels? Are some women who seem to have their fertility firmly connected to what their vitamin d levels are just predisposed to conceiving boys bc it increases testosterone? I guess my only hope is to stay hard but take vitamin d? I am turning 35 in a couple months and have been trying since last April.... i was still breastfeeding ds2 then around 2-3x a day also, another sway tactic that i no longer have. My birthday this year was basically my cut off bc I never wanted to be an "older mom" but my dream of a daughter to complete our family is stronger than ever...

Sorry for the novel, just wanted to give a background.

Thankyou for reading, please Atomic and anyone chime in if you have advice or have a similar experience with vitamin d and needing it to get pregnant at all.

[atomic sagebrush]

Well, none of this (and I understand that if you're convinced of this then nothing I can say will convince you, but still) none of this PROVES that you cannot get pregnant unless you are taking Vitamin D. It may be that the chemicals were related to the Vit. D, but it may not be. It is actually incredibly common for women to have several chemicals at the start when TTC, almost as if our bodies need to "learn" how to stay pregnant.

Now, as for your loss in April (and I'm so sorry to hear about this - my condolences) again, there is just no way to know if this was related to low D or not. And while I know it's hard to believe, a lot of normal healthy pregnancies start off with heavy bleeding at the start and still work out. So as strange as it sounds, bleeding with a BFP is not always cause for concern - though of course it's nerve wracking and never what we want to see, it works out a surprising percent of the time to be ok in the end.

There is some proven connection to very low D levels and trouble getting and staying pregnant. https://www.shadygrovefertility.com/...our-fertility/ But many, many, MANY women conceive just fine with lower Vit. D levels and for all we know, you are one of these people and your losses were completely unconnected. Plus, there is a huge amount of wiggle room between very high, normal, low normal, and inadequate levels. There's a big difference between 50 and 30 and 17 and most of us fall within those ranges somewhere! Trying to conceive with the levels of Vit. D you have right now is fine and shown by science to be adequate to conceive with, even with invasive methods like IVF.

It is bizarre that your doctor did not investigate after your HCG levels did not drop quickly. What justification did they give for that?? That is uncommon and IMO not medically wise.

What I would do is (if you must) take a Vit. D 2x a week. Vit. D is fairly well stored by the body becaue it's fat soluble, so you can get a little in without having it daily. But to be honest nothing about any of this convinced me that you are some person who can't get pregnant without taking Vitamin D - and your D levels are well within the range shown to be conducive to rapid conception anyway.

I would actually like to know more about what ELSE you're doing. Many times when people aren't getting pregnant, they assume it's something like a vitamin deficiency when it is the methods they're using to conceive (doing things like shallow release, for instance, or timing) and not their vitamin levels at all. When we correct for those things, they conceive right away with the same levels!

[NurseViolet]

Thank you so much Atomic for your expedient reply!!!! I really appreciate you getting back to me. I have been ao busy with theboys over the past week i haven't had a chance to reply properly and also think about the questions I need to ask.

Yes z I can undersgand what you are saying, it shouldn't be that my current lwvels would render me infertile but I honestly cannot come up with ehag else it could be. I got labwork done last month and everything checked out ok except for being low on b12. And I reluctantly am taking it but have slacked up from everyday go maybe 3/4 x per week. As I know any nutrients sway blue.

Regarding the pregnancy she monitored me until my levels got to below 5. I was in contact with her also of i had any pain etc. This situation waswe believe an ectopic but may have been elsewhere other than the tubes and was too small to be seen on us. I believe my body reabsorbed it bc around a month later I had a swollen inguinal lymph node for a few days and the it vanished and thats when my levels started dropping quick.

I stopped the sway tactics in March. So no shallow release, jump and dump, once in fertile window, acidic vaginal gels etc. I know when I ovulate and we have sex 2 or 3 times in my fertile window and I even lie on my back with hips raised 15 mins. Nada.

My doctor feels like everything seems in ship shape, it's just a matter of time and bc I ve proven t o be fertile before. Due doesnt think there are issues, but imo I am running out of time.

My question is if vitamin d is so good for fertility in women then why does it raise testosterone? Everything I've ever read about hormonal imbalances causing infertility has pointed to not having a high testosterone level so what gives?

What else is it about vitamin d that improves fertility? I've read about what it does in the reproductive system but not how it does it, which is important to know for swaying.

Thank you for reading!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Hey, you never need to apologize for not getting back to me - it's MY job to get back to YOU LOL.

Has your husband had a sperm analysis?

How are you determining your "fertile window"?

Having NORMAL testosterone is great. Having HIGH testosterone is bad. And there is a lot of wiggle room between those extremes. Having too low testosterone usually coincides with having other hormonal issues like low estrogen and/or low progesterone (and high testosterone can also coincide with having low progesterone) so those things cause issues with fertility.

I'm not too sure they actually KNOW how Vit. D improves fertiltiy. They seem to focus on it improving hormone levels but the mechanics are pretty vague. You don't need to know the whys for swaying. Just do what works for most people most of the time and don't stress the explanation because the truth is, no one studies htis stuff, we piece it together on studies done by people who are somewhat questionable and then animal studies, but the best thing to do is just to mimic what works.

[NurseViolet]

Atomic,

I remembered this thread, and thank you again for replying to me! I hope you've been well in all this craziness that is the world we're living in!! I am again undergoing another chemical pregnancy currently. I actually had ANOTHER pregnancy of unknown location back in January of 2021 where the same exact thing happened as I described in my earlier post. At those times, I don't know what my vitamin d levels were, but I wasn't supplementing other than what was in my prenatal. Again, my uterus and tubes were clear on ultrasound just had some fluid in the cul de sac.

Right now, I have been supplementing again--mega dosing 10,000 IU everyday since October 1st 2021 prior to conceiving at the tail end of December/early this month. My vitamin d levels started at 26ng/ml and I just got them checked again on Jan. 7th and they only went to 37ng/dl. But sure enough, I got pregnant. My betas went from 56 to 125, back to 121 in a matter of a few days time. I've been very lightly spotting on and off the whole time. I haven't even begun bleeding yet but betas don't lie. You know what I'm thinking is the issue of course--that my vitamin d is not closer to 50 like it was when I conceived my youngest ds. (I don't know what my vitamin d level was with ods, but I did take soy isoflavones with him. That was 9 years ago.) And I know you speak with a lot of women about fertility, swaying, supplements, labs, diets etc. all the time so I know and believe you when you say the vast majority of women don't require very high vitamin d levels for fertility but I have been reading about the link between PCOS and vitamin d, and how it balances these hormones and is particularly important for these specific women.

I've done some additional labs last July just to see where my hormones are at. I was 35 at that time, am now 36 but my LH was 5.2, FSH is 5.9, AMH is 6.34ng/dl E2 was 14.06pg/ml (repeat test 3 months later in Oct. was 28.07) Testosterone serum was 11ng/dl and Free T was 2.6pg/ml. DHEA was 204ng/dl (Repeat DHEA in Oct. was 95ng/dl.) SHBG 30.8n/mol , TSH 1.680 and a few others. The only thing that really flagged was my low vitamin d, which I have read about how it effects your estrogen and testosterone and even your amh levels as well as aiding in insulin resistance and increasing endometrial lining. While I don't produce cysts, at least not in the classical form of PCOS b/c I do ovulate- I have just always ovulated late like cd19-23. I still seem to have some form of it b/c my amh is on the higher end for my age. However, my other lab work seems to be somewhat bizarre in relation to a diagnosis of PCOS. At any rate though, I've been reading lots of studies like this:
https://www.remedypublications.com/o...amin-d-512.pdf
I think it makes a lot of sense b/c not everyone woman needs such high doses for fertility...but women with PCOS seem to benefit from much higher doses. I guess my concern is would doing the diet hopefully be enough to counteract the blue sway effects from the vitamin d? If hormones don't necessarily effect swaying, which seems to be among the newer research and stats if I'm not mistaken, then I guess how does Vitamin D sway blue, and with my hormones, it seems that my total testosterone is low as it is. But I've read that vitamin d supplementation in women with pcos actually lowers androgens by increasing shbg and lowering free testosterone anyway....

I'm also taking myo-inositol and d chiro and it has been helping to shorten my follicular phase and make my periods less heavy also. I am at my heaviest weight now, so I definitely have the weight to spare. I know it sways girl. Has anyone else came to you with these kinds of concerns or made this correlation to their infertility? I do know that low vitamin d is linked with chemical pregnancies but it seems that mine have to be optimal to stop them from happening...not just sufficient. Thanks so much for reading and Happy New Year!!!


Update: 01/17/22. I think I'm dealing with an ectopic currently so will keep updating as I find out more....

[atomic sagebrush]

Oh gosh can you please bump this for me?? I just sat down to answer a couple posts while my kids are walking the dog and then they have a school thing. It's just a little long and I want to give you my best effort!!

[NurseViolet]

Bump.

Oh, sorry atomic! Thanks for getting back to me at all, I figured you're super busy and didn't want to bother you. Sorry for it being so long too. I was on my phone for part of it and didn't realize just how long it ended up being. I will try to break it up with paragraphs atleast!

[atomic sagebrush]

No need to apologize, I'm happy to help but sometimes when I think it's going to be short, and it's long, I need you guys to give me a bump! Thank you!

Oh gosh, so sorry to hear of your loss!

Did they give you any explanation as to why that had seemed to happen again??

Again, I would say that none of this proves that you need to have your Vitamin D levels at 50 to conceive and for a pregnancy to progress. I truly do think you're reading into things that are not indicative of anything - you were taking the Vit. D supplements and had a pretty good level when you conceived that pregnancy. If you would like to have your Vit D level at or above 50, go right ahead, but I have never seen anything in my experience and observation that has indicated this to be at all the case.

Various sites make all sorts of claims that are kinda sorta based in the outward trappings of science but are not really supported by many proven facts. They do this to sell supplements in some cases, and in other cases it's to appear they have answers and explanations for things we simply do not know based on medical data as of yet. As for studies, they arte are often problematic and even outright misleading because researchers have all sorts of tricks they can use to get a particular result. It is estimated about 50% of scientific studies or possibly even more are untrue and later overturned. https://bigthink.com/surprising-scie...robably-false/

I'm not going to go into refuting the claims of lots of different websites because it would take up too much of our time, and I doubt you'd be convinced anyway. YOu're going to believe what you think is true, and that's your prerogative. But we have SCADS of PCOSers on here - I would estimate 40-60% our pink swayers (depending on whoever's active at any given time) have either full blown PCOS or tendencies that way, with irregular cycles and history of higher blood sugar. These lovely ladies do our alternate diet WITHOUT any supplemental Vitamin D. They do this for months, even years at a time sometimes, and not only get pregnant that way, but see their cycle go from always being irregular to being spot on. AND our time to conception on average is about three months - even for PCOSers. We are not seeing an unusual number of chemical pregnancies for them. If a lack of Vitamin D was something that was affecting PCOSers and preventing conception, we would not be seeing these results.

It is only human nature to want to believe that something easy like just taking a vitamin pill can prevent future losses but there are websites full of women who are taking Vitamin D, inositol, etc and still do have losses. If only it were that easy!

So please feel free to take Vitamin D if you would like. I think it sways blue, I do not think you need optimal levels to conceive, but if YOU believe in it, by all means. I also think you probably don't have PCOS, at least not the full blown syndrome, if your testosterone is low.

The best thing you can do to prevent losses with PCOS is to get into a healthy BMI, exercise, eat a better quality diet with lower, but not very low carbs (eating too few carbs can also be hard on fertility) and the carbs of a better quality. The alternate atomic fertility diet would be a good option for you. The myoinositol can really help because it lowers blood sugar and can help you both in terms of losing more weight than you might have otherwise, and it also seems to sway pink (probably because of the effects on blood sugar.) So absolutely I'd carry on with that.

Hormones DO affect swaying but it's simply not as "easy" as "testosterone sways blue, progesterone sways pink" like the old school sway gurus claim. We simply don't know how it works, that's all, and it really does not at all just seem to be "testosterone".

I am hoping and praying this is not an ectopic, please keep me posted and let me know how I can help!