hi everyone! i don't come on this app often but i thought i should come on here to share something i think could be very helpful. i'm sure most of you know, when diagnosed with fibromyalgia, it's usually because all your labs, scans, etc. are normal and they don't know what else it could be. for me, it's been a few years since i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. like everyone when they get diagnosed, even though there is no cure, i have tried so many different things in hopes that it would manage my symptoms well enough. i've tried using icy hot, biofreeze, salonpas patches, multiple medications, physical therapy, tens unit, massaging, epsom salt baths, and cbd oil. i got to a point where i didn't care anymore because i was coming to terms with the fact this is my life now and i started to really grieve who i used to be. after a little while of feeling this way i remembered there was something i hadn't tried yet. vitamin supplements. i remembered that i had seen, on fibro groups, a handful of patients have enough relief to function better than when not on vitamin supplements. of course, this isn't everyone's experience but i thought it would be worth the try at least. i had nothing to lose at this point. before starting on just whatever supplements, i decided to email my doctor to ask for a blood test to see if there are specific vitamins i may need. once the results came back my doctor emailed me almost immediately. stating that i had a severe vitamin d deficiency. the recommended levels for vitamin d are 20-40ng/mL. some professionals say even 20 is on the low side and that it's preferred to have levels above 25ng/mL. my levels came back at 9ng/mL. she put me on a very high dose of vitamin d that i will take for 12 weeks and after that i'll take over the counter vitamin d. curious what vitamin d deficiency symptoms were, i looked it up. to my surprise, at least 99% of my fibro symptoms are direct symptoms of vitamin d deficiency. since i found this out i've been doing research almost daily. reading articles, watching tiktoks, and youtube videos of those who have suffered vitamin d deficiency. mostly because finding out that when i get my levels back to normal it's possible i may not struggle like i do now was hard to believe. i didn't want to get my hopes up. but the more stories i hear the more i have hope that this the cause of my chronic pain and that i will be okay. the reason i'm sharing this is because a vitamin blood panel is not part of the routine blood panels they do. which is very surprising to me considering vitamin d deficiency has a lot similarities with fibro. so if you're newly diagnosed with fibro or you've had it for a while and haven't gotten your vitamin levels checked, i highly recommended asking to do so.