2020 was horrible for me. I didn't get coronavirus, but it was the first year in over a decade that I had to see a doctor for something other than routine checkups.
I will try to keep this short because the last few months have been a horror show for me.
Basically, I was taking the following supplements/vitamins from late 2019 to September 2020: Very high doses of Vitamin D, recommended dose of glucosamine chondroitin, cod liver oil, and Vitamin C.
From March 2020 to September 2020 I added the following to the stuff I was taking above: I increased Vitamin D to 30,000 IU/day, started taking Vitamin A (40,000 IU), Vitamin B-100 complex (B1, B2, Niacin, B6, B12, Biotin, Folate), Vitamin E 1,000 IU/day, DIM, Chelated Zinc 50mg/day, and Magnesium 250mg/day.
Why was I taking all of this? I am an idiot and was trying to be "healthy" after being very unhealthy (was overweight, eating poorly, and not very active). Combined with all those supplements, I was on a very strict ketogenic diet - lots of vegetables, eggs, and bacon was basically my meal every day. I also included nutritional yeast and apple cider vinegar/lemon juice drink (2 tbsp of apple cider and 2 lemons squeezed in plenty water).
Now everything was going amazingly well until the lockdowns happened in March. Before March, I lost a ton of weight, was exercising all the time, had tons of energy, my mind was clear, no signs of illness at all. I wasn't overdosing on Vitamin D (it was still a high amount) and I wasn't overloading my body with supplements/vitamins. Once lockdowns happened, I guess I got freaked out and decided that I needed to increase dosage (no doctor guided me on this stuff, I did research online and admittedly I think I took it too far).
So here's the synopsis of what happened:
I'm feeling fine until July 2020, where I get a MASSIVE depression attack. I was taking Vitamin D to help with my depression (especially being stuck inside so often), but I had never felt depressed like that before. It lasted for a month, then went away. The depression attack actually prompted me to take more Vitamin D tablets and try to go out in the sun to get more naturally.
After that subsided in July (I believe that could have been a reaction to all the pills I was taking or due to lockdown stress), August I continued doing home workouts and taking the same excessive amount of pills, then noticed my urine was dark when I would pee in the morning only (I drink a lot of water, so that was very concerning to me as it didn't even look like the normal shade of yellow, it was very dark). That prompted me to decrease the pills (like one or two less tablets, not much), it didn't seem as bad when I urinated, so I just kept going on.
A few weeks after on September 10 - I was in complete agony: I was lethargic, fatigued, light-headed, dizzy, headaches, weakness (in arms and legs), itchy (under my feet), ears ringing, and stuffy head (like on a plane). I assumed that this was due to transitioning into ketosis because I had come off of keto for one month (August). However, I never felt the "keto flu" like this before ever. I had never felt that helpless and weak in my life before. After a few days of merely existing in pain and useless, I decided to just stop taking all the vitamins/supplements. This helped me feel better and it was a gradual improvement.
I wanted to make sure I didn't ruin my organs, so I went to a GP for tests and explained my situation - I believed that I had a Vitamin A/Vitamin D overdose. The GP said there was no such thing and sort of laughed at me self-medicating because I was scared of corona. Anyway, I didn't really care what he thought of my admittedly stupid situation, I just wanted test results to make sure my organs were fine. He called me back in to go over the results, even though they were available online and everything (except cholesterol) was fine. I was really nervous because if everything was fine, why call me back? I go in and he says everything is fine, except for cholesterol and he insisted I take a statin. The cholesterol thing is a side issue because I knew it would be high due to being on keto - which he didn't believe and spent 20 minutes peddling a statin on me. Eventually, I had to cut that conversation short and demand for some insight on the actual reason I went in - the fatigue/lethargy/weakness etc. because I wanted an explanation of what happened because I was scared. He brushed it off as the vitamins/supplements and said that I should stay off of them. I was charged for this visit and was told my insurance didn't cover it - so I had to pay for the completely useless visit.
Anyway, so after that I believed things would get better if I just avoided the tablets - which I did. Every now and then, I would feel weak or fatigued, but I felt good enough to go back exercising. Things were getting a little better. But then I noticed in mid-October: muscle spasms and eye/finger twitching, which didn't really scare me I thought it had something to do with sleep, as I wasn't sleeping very well. Then the day after I went to the gym, I woke up with a stiff neck, tingling/prickling/burning in hands/forearm/feet, headaches, weakness, muscle spasm/finger twitching, and feeling very warm/intolerant to heat. Again, I never felt anything like this before and googled and of course saw the frightening diagnosis of MS. I thought I would give it a few days to see if it gets better on its own. The stiff neck went away on its own, but the prickling/burning/tingling stayed and I would wake up with my arm numb or "sleeping". I also noticed my hands shaking more and I felt "internal tremors" in my legs. That's what started to scare me. I booked an appointment with a neurologist. He said that it sounded like a neck injury from being in the gym and recommended physical therapy or to wait a few weeks because it may heal on its own. I wanted to rule out MS, so he said I could do a MRI of the brain. The brain MRI was clear except for a pineal cyst which he said was benign and nothing to worry about. I started physical therapy for my neck and in a few weeks, the burning/tingling was gone.
All that remained now was the tremors and the heat intolerance. When I went back to the neurologist to follow up, he said that I had a benign essential tremor. It doesn't affect my regular life at all and is barely noticeable (visually), so he just recommended keeping an eye on it and if it gets bothersome to come back. The heat intolerance thing, I'm not sure if it's just because I regained all the weight I lost or something metabolic, but I'm not sure if it's an actual symptom or not because it's currently winter, so I can't determine whether I'm just in rooms with the heat turned on high or something.
Anyway, so I thought about it and the only thing that I haven't changed since all hell broke loose in September was keto, so I came off of keto for December. The internal tremors in my legs are basically gone now, but I still have a weird feeling from time to time, but it's much less noticeable than before - so I assume it's getting better. My arms/hands still have the tremor when I examine them closely and I kind of feel less coordinated with my hands, but I don't know if that's just in my head (I play piano and somehow that's fine, yet I feel like I'm struggling putting contacts on my eyes).
I know it was a lot to read and I really appreciate anyone's insight on this. I never hard tremors before in my hands. Does anyone think that the tremors could have been caused by all the vitamins/supplements I was taking? Can the tremors go away by staying off of them? It's only been about 4 months since I came off the vitamins/supplements and I feel much better than when the first symptoms hit me in September. I'm just wondering how long it would take to recover from basically overdosing on high volumes of vitamins for about 10 months?
Thank you all for reading.