181–190 of 669 posts
Your body makes Vitamin D when in sunlight. Could it be that sunlight - and the whole being outdoors situation - is the thing that helps rather than vitamin d levels?
Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…
“God, I see what you’re doing for others, and I want that for me.” I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido, so I chose to endure the suffering of Winter rather than live with emotional numbness. Still, I strongly recommend it for people flirting with the abyss. It was life-changing for me while I was raising an autistic 2yo during the pandemic.
Did you, as well as the other people seconding this, have any libido left in the first place? I got on Sertraline because I was depressed, and it actually brought my libido back, by virtue of just bringing me back to a better emotional baseline.
All to say, if it had affected my libido, it'd have been a NOOP anyway in my case.
While I agree with the general point Vitamin D is toxic (and ultimately fatal) at high doses, which is why the 'suggested' dosages of between 400IU and 1000IU are so conservative. You may need more, but you should get a blood test.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The meta-analysis cited in the article is from 2024 and specifically mentions the Shaffer et al. 2014 review cited by Wikipedia as being low quality: > Some of the available reviews, owing to the limited number of trials and methodological biases, were of low quality (Anglin et al., 2013; Cheng et al., 2020; Li et al., 2014; Shaffer et al., 2014). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11650176/
Therefore what to do? I have seen these Hacker News vitamin D ads appear every few months for the past 15 years, or so. I always seem to have a vitamin D deficiency, so it reminds me to take supplements. I take them for a few months, hoping to see a change, but I don't feel any benefit. Then, I forget to take the supplements until the next time I see an ad. How to know if they're actually doing something useful?
With depression it is important to find the cause of it. You might be depressed because you life objectively sucks. Then you symptoms are good and healthy and a signal to make changes in your circumstances. You might actually have a good life but still feel depressed because there is a chemical imbalance in your brain. (Very simplified). That is when drugs come in. It might be just a seasonal thing and you need to go…
You mean relatively sucks. Else every single human ancestor would have to be super depressed too given the standard of life in the past.
On a sidenote, I know that knowing that it is "just your depression talking" is also a pretty hard pill to swallow and not always helpful. Personally I have a lot of fears that I know are irrational but that doesn't make them any less real.
And even if your problems are external, sometimes you need to focus and your inner self first, find some strength and help so you can tackle the external problems later. But for other people "working on yourself" can be avoiding the actual problems they need to work on.
And yes happiness is always relative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, so what value is there in LLM slop exctracted from already dubious self-medication advice?
They're saying that it successfully filtered out the bit where the author told people to overdose by 40000x. I guess that's the value.
Please do not take 5000mg/day of Vitamin D. The author confuses IU and mg which is very dangerous.
If you don't have an underlying condition it is way better to get the Vitamin D from the sun in 10-30min increments per day after which you are saturated for the day. Overdose is not possible via the sun (excluding sun burns of course). > A single, optimal sun exposure session might produce the equivalent of 10,000 to 25,000 IU from a supplement, but it will not keep increasing with more time in the sun. That's your…
In many countries it is physically impossible to get enough vitamin D from the sun, even if you go out naked.
Also did you ever notice that the cheap apartments in many places are facing north and do not have a balcony, and of course do not have a private garden? Now you are reduced to going to a park which in the "cheap" areas is also not a good spot to chill for 30 minutes.
Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't have an underlying condition it is way better to get the Vitamin D from the sun in 10-30min increments per day after which you are saturated for the day. Overdose is not possible via the sun (excluding sun burns of course). > A single, optimal sun exposure session might produce the equivalent of 10,000 to 25,000 IU from a supplement, but it will not keep increasing with more time in the sun. That's your…
This is nonsense advice for pretty much anybody that is shovelling snow right now.