Feeling worse after taking Vitamin D, especially with symptoms like nausea, fatigue, headaches, or confusion, often signals too much Vitamin D leading to high blood calcium (hypercalcemia), usually from high-dose supplements, but it can also be due to taking it on an empty stomach, an underlying condition, or even mineral imbalance like low magnesium, so consult a doctor to check levels and adjust dosage.
If you take too much supplemental or prescription vitamin D, it can lead to vitamin D toxicity. The main complication of this is moderate to severe hypercalcemia, which can cause symptoms like vomiting, increased thirst and frequent urination.
Vitamin D is essential, but getting too much, especially from supplements, can have serious side effects. Too much vitamin D can cause dangerously high calcium levels in the blood, which can lead to symptoms like fatigue, nausea, confusion, and damage to blood vessels.
If you are experiencing symptoms such as acid reflux, muscle cramps, headaches, and (as discussed) constipation, it could be that your Vitamin D supplement is driving down Magnesium levels.
High doses of Vitamin D supplements may contribute to headaches if they cause blood calcium levels to rise too much. This typically occurs with prolonged high-dose Vitamin D supplementation rather than standard daily dosing. Symptoms may also appear alongside nausea, increased thirst or general fatigue.
Taking too much vitamin D leads to calcium buildup (hypercalcemia), causing physical signs like nausea/vomiting, fatigue/weakness, frequent urination & excessive thirst, constipation, and confusion/disorientation, alongside potential bone pain or kidney stones, often from supplements, not sun exposure.
Magnesium Deficiency
Neurologist Dr. Joshua Daniel of Shore Physicians Group said many migraine headache sufferers are found to be deficient in magnesium when they have blood work done.
Health effects of vitamin D toxicity
The main concern of vitamin D toxicity is a buildup of calcium in the blood. This is called hypercalcemia. Hypercalcemia can cause upset stomach and vomiting, weakness, and frequent urination. It also can lead to bone pain and kidney troubles such as kidney stones.
High doses of vitamin D can cause too much calcium in the blood, called hypercalcemia. Hypercalcemia raises the risk of fatal heart conditions with digoxin. Diltiazem (Cardizem, Tiazac, others). Don't take high doses of vitamin D with this blood pressure medicine.
Recent Findings. Low vitamin D levels are associated with increased symptoms of depression and anxiety. For this reason, vitamin D screening should be performed in the prevention and treatment planning of these mood disorders.
What's more, taking too much vitamin D can also negatively impact our health as well as our joint pain because our body simply can't cope! If toxic levels of vitamin D build up in the body it can interfere with your body's absorption of calcium.
However, excessive vitamin D can lead to dangerously high calcium levels in the blood, causing uncomfortable and potentially harmful symptoms. Signs of vitamin D toxicity or high calcium levels in the blood include: Digestive issues such as vomiting, nausea, and stomach pain. Fatigue, dizziness, and confusion.
Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets in children and will precipitate and exacerbate osteopenia, osteoporosis, and fractures in adults. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with increased risk of common cancers, autoimmune diseases, hypertension, and infectious diseases.
You get too much of a good thing
“Too much [vitamin C] supplement (whether it be gummy, chewable, or powder), can lead to an upset stomach,” says Bianca Klotsman, a holistic nutritionist in New York City of HolisticRX. “The best practice is to take only what your body is deficient in.” Look for gaps in your diet, too.
Taking an over-the-counter vitamin D supplement can help raise your levels and improve deficiency symptoms within six weeks to four months, depending on how severe your deficiency is. You may begin to feel consistently more energetic and in a better mood when your use of vitamin D supplements starts to work.
There are some risks of taking too much vitamin D, including gas and bloating. Vitamin D overdose (hypervitaminosis D) happens when you take an excessive amount of the vitamin. This can lead to higher levels of calcium in the blood (hypercalcemia), which can disrupt your digestive system.
The two most common mistakes when taking vitamin D are taking it without adequate fatty foods for absorption, and neglecting to take it with Vitamin K2 and magnesium, which are crucial for directing calcium to bones and activating the vitamin D in your body, respectively, leading to ineffective supplementation or calcium buildup issues. Many also mistakenly choose the less effective D2 form over D3, or take incorrect dosages without blood tests, according to this snippet from Healthshots, this snippet from GrassrootsHealth, this snippet from Yahoo! Health, this snippet from the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, and this snippet from Verywell Mind.
Vitamin D absorption can be prevented by limited sun exposure (dark skin, sunscreen, covering up, indoor lifestyle), medical conditions (celiac, Crohn's, cystic fibrosis, liver/kidney disease, obesity), certain medications (steroids, anti-seizure drugs, weight-loss drugs), and even some nutritional factors like low magnesium, with fat malabsorption issues and obesity being major culprits for preventing both dietary and sun-derived vitamin D from working effectively.
Taking too many vitamin D supplements over a long period of time can cause too much calcium to build up in the body (hypercalcaemia). This can weaken the bones and damage the kidneys and the heart. If you choose to take vitamin D supplements, 10 micrograms a day will be enough for most people.
Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is generally better than Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) because it is more effective at raising and maintaining blood levels of vitamin D, is produced naturally by the body from sunlight, and is often recommended by doctors for deficiency correction. While both forms increase vitamin D in the blood, D3 is more potent and longer-lasting, making it the preferred choice for most people, though D2 is suitable for vegans.
“Given its slow turnover (half-life of approximately 2 months), during which vitamin D toxicity develops, symptoms can last for several weeks,” warn the authors. The symptoms of hypervitaminosis D are many and varied, they point out, and are mostly caused by excess calcium in the blood.
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a number of painful conditions. A few recent observations indicate that migraine and tension-type headache could be related to low serum vitamin D level.
Symptoms of Chiari Malformation
These severe headaches can occur in different areas of the cranium and even around the eyes but generally radiate from the base of the skull into the back of the head, neck, and upper back area. Many patients describe the pain as pulsating, or sharp and throbbing.
Brain tumor headaches tend to cause pain that's worse when coughing or straining. People with brain tumors most often report that the headache feels like a tension headache. Some people say the headache feels like a migraine. Brain tumors in the back of the head might cause a headache with neck pain.