Hey Emjay,

Hang in there...  You're spot on... There's more than anecdotal evidence that vitamin D3 can help prevent outbreaks of both conditions. Did you have the lab test for your serum concentration of 25(OH)D?

Knowing your starting level of 25(OH)D will give you a better idea how long it will take to get it up to a concentration of 60 ng/mL  That's the serum concentration where most CH'ers go pain free...  Some need to go even higher up to 100 ng/mL.

Mike, there are two types of lab tests for calcium. One is Total Calcium (Ca) with a normal range of 8.4-10.5 mg/dL and Ionized Calcium (Ca⁺⁺) with a normal reference range of 4.1-5.2 mg/dL.

There's evidence the low and high boundaries of both methods are low.  This reference range was determined here in the US by taking several thousand people, measure their serum calcium concentration and then use a Gaussian distribution to calculate “normal." 

Unfortunately, most "normal" people here in the US are vitamin D3 deficient so their calcium levels will also tend to be low.

For example, the normal reference range of calcium considered normal in East Germany is 9.4 to 11.2 mg/dL.  It seams the East Germans are up to speed on the high prevalence of vitamin D3 deficiency so a larger portion of their population supplements with vitamin D3 and as a result, they tend to have higher serum calcium levels.

For reference... The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research published a report that states the following about hypercalcemia:

"Most patients do not begin to show clinical features of hypercalcemia until the total calcium concentration exceeds 12 mg/dl, and patients are almost invariably symptomatic at levels >14 mg/dl. However, there is much individual variation in this regard."

Take care and hope this helps.

V/R, Batch