So, I’m just about a month into carnivore. I started out the first 4-5 days feeling great, then experienced an overall malaise that wasn’t improving in the slightest. Overall, inexplicable soreness even with electrolyte consumption, digestion issues and low energy. I’ve literally spent most of my adult life doing keto, well under 25 g carbs so this was very disheartening. So I did what I always do; I looked for the starting point of my pain. I started Carnivore on 25 Dec, felt great until after the New Year. While looking at my Amazon order history, I noticed that on Dec 30th, I had some vitamin d3 delivered that I had begun taking that day. Out of curiosity, I started looking into various forums to see if anyone else had experienced more soreness and fatigue after beginning a vitamin d3 supplement. While it’s not incredibly prevalent, there were quite a few posts on Reddit (and even a few reviews of the product on Amazon) that indicated the same problems to the tee. So I stopped. I literally feel like a new man. I showed up for training a few days ago and after a few weeks of mediocre, sluggish sessions, shocked the hell out of my Crossfit coach with a renewed energy that hasn’t slowed down yet. Turns out it wasn’t Carnivores fault, it was a man made supplements fault.
Update...mystery solved!
Montrell
VERY interesting anecdote, and something to watch out for. I have been high dosing on VitD for the past year or so, and I have not thought or felt it had any detrimental effects.
But, you never know. I might do a week without it and see what happens.
Cheers
Alec
One man’s cure mis another man’s poison. No rhyme or reason. Glad you figured it out. That’s one thing I love about keto… we know what we eat and can trace back our symptoms to a possible cause. Glad you figured it out!
I’ve had this too, and when I had bloods done they showed my levels were too high so stopped taking it and fine. There was also an issue with my thyroid that showed up, most likely linked as it fixed itself when D3 dropped down to normal.
Now I no longer take D3 daily like I was doing, strictly only over the darkest time of the year.
Hummmm, interesting. Thank you for posting that anecdote. I may stop my D supplement and see what happens. Btw, how much were you taking?
Were you taking this because of a low blood level? Do you have any blood testing results you could share?
I think a blood test would be advised, to see what the levels are. Reminder to self: send in the vitamin D test you have at home.
Just 1000 IU. I spend all day in an office that doesn’t have a window. By the time I get home from work, it is late in the afternoon, so no chance to make any naturally, well, and the fact it’s winter and I’m all covered up when I go outside. But, maybe due to my mostly carnivore diet, I don’t need any extra?
My body has been particularly achy. It certainly wouldn’t hurt stip the supplement just to see if I notice anything.
One consideration to add to the mix is that Vitamin D is made from cholesterol. So having enough cholesterol to synthesise from is a consideration.
@milorc Fascinating - many thanks to you for sharing this post and update! It would be extremely helpful to “name names” with the brand and dosage you were taking and subsequently stopped.
Not to pile onto the comments above, but I’ll share some info that might also be relevant to those exploring Vitamin D supplementation:
My wife and I (who are 15-20 minute/daily sun-soakers during the summer) also take daily D3 @ 5000 IU throughout the entire year.
Our D3 levels were recently checked both in summer and now in winter and both of our levels meander between a low of 80 and a high of 100 ng/ml based on the season.
The healthy “reference range” indicated by most labs is between 30-100 ng/ml… lower is not good, and although the labs don’t say so, research I’ve come across indicates that too much above 100 is where one is inviting troublesome complications (hence, that’s why we’ve been testing the combination of 5000 IU + sunshine).
Our goal in upping the Vitamin D3 was - in combination with K2 - to see if that had any beneficial effects on our CAC scores. It seems to have done so … as I reported here recently, my own CAC score fell from 207 to 157 this past year.
QUESTION: Have you had a Vitamin D blood test done at any point along the way? If so, could you please share your results here?
Has anyone else experiencing similar reactions to Vit D supplementation gotten any test results to share regarding their own blood levels?
FWIW, we both feel great in terms of energy, overall health, etc., so being “high” within the 30-100 ng/ml range - even on a daily dose of 5000 UI - doesn’t seem to be tipping either of us over the edge toward what you’ve experienced.
Best wishes!
What is actually in the vitamin D3? Is it a capsule or a drop? What is in there besides D3?
While I think D3 might be the issue, I would guess it’s something other than D3. Though I could be wrong.
I suspect the same, hence my interest in learning the specific brand/source/dosage of this particular Vit D supplement.
For deep eye-opening clinical research on Vitamin D, read anything (research, books) written by Dr Michael F. Holick, MD/PhD, endocrinologist, professor of medicine at Boston U Medical Ctr, editor-in-chief of Clinical Laboratory journal.
As I understand it, both are necessary to the process.
Wonder if that’s why mine needed up so high as my cholesterol is apparently off the scale? 
Yes, that’s what I thought, so eating a lot of cholesterol doesn’t help if I’m not getting UVB.
Yes, my first thought was “what if it’s the excipient, not the D3” - I’d be interested in knowing the brand, dose and full ingredient list.
Not only that, but eating cholesterol has no effect on serum cholesterol. It was actually Ancel Keys who showed that, by the way.
What does affect cholesterol levels is saturated fat (which helps improve HDL), avoiding carbohydrates (which will help lower triglycerides), and avoiding PUFA’s (which will help raise LDL).