What is vitamin D?
Vitamin D, also known as 'the sunshine vitamin, is an essential nutrient that plays a critical role in bone development and remodelling, immune maintenance and the modulation of cell growth. Vitamin D deficiency has now been linked to breast, colon and prostate cancer, heart disease, depression and weight gain. Remarkably, it's also been found to reduce the prevalence of falls and improve grip strength in the elderly.
Why an injection if I can get it through the sun and food?
Similarly to many other vitamins, D can be found and used by the body by eating foods such as red meats, oily fish, mushrooms and dairy products. A healthy balanced diet is the best first step to ensuring adequate levels of vitamin D in the body. Due to Vitamin D being fat soluble, it is absorbed better when taken with natural fats in foods. Common low fat products therefore are commonly lower in bioavailable vit D than full fat options. Free range options are also more sensible when attempting to increase vitamin D levels due to the animals themselves being exposed to higher levels of sunlight. There are however times where even a vitamin D rich diet results in deficiency. These include individuals who take anti acid medications, suffer from conditions like Crohn's or are obese.
Sunlight is the other major natural resource for providing the human body with vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency is on the rise and research has attempted to correlate this to occupational factors like desk based jobs and lack of sun exposure. Sun cream above factor 30 also blocks the UV rays that allow absorption of Vitamin D into the body. Individuals with darker skin who have built natural defences against high UV can struggle to get the required levels in countries that aren't sunny regularly. The obvious issue with countries like Britain is that for half the year, sunlight is minimal and the cold requires almost constant coverage of the skin.
Intramuscular injections bypass these potential issues and allows vitamin D to be efficiently stored in our fat cells to be used when required.
300,000 IU per injection
Dose lasts longer than 8-12 weeks in most adults
Maximum 4 injections per year
Simple enquiry
Book online or call the clinic to schedule an appointment. Prior to your appointment, you will be asked to complete a short form, this will be emailed to you if you book online or completed over the phone if you call.
Prescription approval
Your practitioner will submit a prescription request using the answers from the form you've provided. Most requests without contraindications are approved within 48 hours.
Vitamin D appointment
You'll attend your scheduled appointment where you'll receive your injection.
You'll have the opportunity to ask any questions, discuss any needle phobias and discuss future treatment options.
Treatment plan
Depending on your circumstance, you may wish to keep up with vitamin D injections. Due to being fat soluble and stored by the body, a maximum of 4 injections may be administered per year.
Patient journey
Intramuscular Vit D injections are strictly a prescribed medication in the UK and should only ever be administered by a trained, insured practitioner who uses only UK approved products. Every injection performed at West-Gate is approved by an independent prescriber who ensures the individual recipient is safe to receive the treatment.
Unlike Vitamin B12 and other water soluble vitamins, Vitamin D is fat soluble and is therefore stored by the body. This is useful as it means that the effects last a lot longer in most adults. However, it also makes it possible to take in too much vitamin D if supplementing with high doses of vitamin D within a short period of time. We therefore limit Vitamin D injections to 4 times per year per individual for the safety of our patients.
