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Comment by jonnycomputer | Hacker News Reader

This actually reinforces for me the idea that people need individualized expert advice on this. I know that lay people (and I include myself here) tend to think if x is good for you then more x is even better. So you see vitamins marketed with extreme %s over daily recommended levels. Supplementation really seems it should be last resort.

This reminds me somewhat of how people are so concerned about the health effects of too much salt that they end up getting too little, which is also detrimental.

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I asked my doctor about getting my levels checked in regards to vitamins, testosterone, etc. She somewhat rudely brushed it off. Is there a good way to ask about this or should I seek out a specialist on my own?

For the basics like this, you can just buy the test online from any of the test vendors like Ulta, LTAPI, etc.

You might want to find a new doctor. The primary care doctors I've had in my life run blood tests for things like vitamin levels (especially B12 and D) annually.

You can just order bloodwork online with no interaction from a doctor and go to a local lab testing corp to get the blood drawn. This is assuming you're in America.

e.g. privatemdlabs.com (I'm not recommending that site, just giving it as an example, though I have used them in the past and everything worked as expected).

If you are a lay person, as I am, you can still make judgements symptomatically. If you have good reason to believe you are probably deficient, you can conservatively experiment with taking supplements and see if it helps. If your status improves, adjust doses downward as needed.

Keep a journal. Keep a journal. Keep a journal.

If you can't manage it yourself in that manner, yes, seek testing and so forth.

Don't ever take supplements of any kind for any reason if you don't have reason to believe you in particular actually need the supplement. Period.

Journal is huge.

I also keep a log of every medication and supplement and notes on how it affects me. Doctors like being handed a 2 Page document with everything listed and the results.

I also got diagnosed with a rare condition from this. Doctor saw more to the reactions then I had.

People don't realize it, but journaling doesn't have to be hard. If you are talking to yourself, really brief notes can help jog your memory about "That was the day I had two eggs instead of one and otherwise did everything the same" and you don't necessary need to write down every single morsel of food to let yourself know next week "That was the day I had an extra egg with that meal." You know what your "usual" is. "My usual, but with an extra egg" is something that will mean something to future you next week, even if it means nothing ten years from now.

Journaling as a health management tool doesn't have to be complicated and burdensome. Write down what you feel you will need help remembering in a few days when you are wondering "What truck ran me over this time???" and as you get value out of it, you may feel like writing more because you can see it isn't a waste of time.

Just start, no matter how pathetically.

From the article: "It often takes many months for high Vitamin D levels to drop, and it took six months for Shannon’s level to fall into the 50s."

I don't think a journal will help in these circumstances, the time lapse between cause and effect is just too long. Getting tested is cheap and easy (and here I'm thinking of people who are deficient in vitamin D, if the results are too low then it seems that taking a supplement would be a good idea).

This story in specific is being told by the medical specialist who resolved the issue and I was not really trying to give advice for extreme cases where you should pretty obviously be speaking to a medical specialist.

But I've journaled for years and my experience suggests that if you do it regularly, you do get better at noticing things over longer time frames. So, no, it's not useless to journal in such cases.

As with anything, more education and experience with it will get you better at it and how useful it is to you will depend on a lot of factors.

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