Is vitamin D deficiency associated with non specific musculoskeletal pain?

Abstract

Backgrounds:Vitamin D deficiency is common worldwide, including Iran. It has been suggested that vitamin D deficiency is associated with non-specific musculoskeletal pain. The aim of this study is evaluation of the association of musculoskeletal pain with vitamin D deficiency and the response of the patients to vitamin D supplementation.Materials and Methods:sixty two adult patients with chief complaint of musculoskeletal pain were enrolled in the study. Serum concentrations of 25(OH)D, Calcium, Phosphate, Alkaline Phosphatase and PTH were determined. If there was vitamin D deficiency, oral vitamin D supplementation was given. Assessment of pain and its response to therapy was carried out using Visual Assessment Score (VAS). SPSS software version 15.0 was used for statistical analyses.Findings:Most of the patients (95.4%) had vitamin D deficiency. Pain in 53 patients (85.5%) with responded to the proposed treatment. In responder group post treatment vitamin D concentration was significantly higher than non responder group (60.6±27.6and 39.2±9.6 nmol/l respectively, p<0.01) pretreatment vitamin D and minerals concentrations and pain characteristics did not have significant differences in responder and non responder group.Conclusion:Treatment with vitamin D can relieve the pain in majority of the patients with vitamin D deficiency. Lack of response can be due to insufficient increase in serum vitamin D concentration. Physiologic differences of gastrointestinal vitamin D absorption, differences of body mass indexes, and noncompliance could be potential causes for this issue. Reassessment of serum 25(OH)D concentration is recommended in nonresponsive patients.

Mechanical factors and vitamin D deficiency in schoolchildren with low back pain: biochemical and cross-sectional survey analysis

“…A higher prevalence rate of vitamin D deficiency was reported among populations with musculoskeletal and/or widespread pain conditions. Some studies showed high prevalences of suboptimal vitamin D levels in populations with musculoskeletal and/or widespread pain conditions 98–101…”

The effect of vitamin D on nonspecific low back pain

“…Also, more improvement was reported in old patients with back pain who received vitamin D in comparison to the placebo . Abbasi and coworkers reported more than 60% decrease of VAS score in a majority of patients with musculoskeletal pain and vitamin D deficiency when treated with oral vitamin D 3 . However, two recent meta‐analyses by Straube revealed contrasting outcomes between results of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and other study designs.…”

“…In comparison to other investigations, the obvious difference in the present study is the lower mean age of the patients. Similar to the study by Warner and coworkers, in the current study, the outcome was “decrease of pain VAS score.” However, in some studies showing a good effect of vitamin D 3 in alleviating chronic pain, the outcome was expressed as “percentage of patients with improvement of pain.” Therefore, the methodology of reporting the outcome may be a contributing factor to the evaluation of the effectiveness of vitamin D in chronic pain.…”

“…[14][15][16][17][18] Furthermore, the effect of vitamin D administration on improvement of chronic pain has been demonstrated in some studies. [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] But there is a disparity in the effect of treatment with vitamin D between randomized and double-blind clinical trials in comparison to studies of other designs. 29,30 We aimed to evaluate the effect of vitamin D on improvement of LBP by conducting this randomized double-blind clinical trial, since there are a few studies based on this experimental design.…”

Dolor músculo esquelético y vitamina D

“…En el grupo que si respondió al tratamiento los niveles de VD alcanzados fueron de 60.6 ± 27.6 comparados con 39.2 ± 9.6 nmol/l p<0.01 en los que no. Concluyen que el tratamiento con VD mejora el dolor en la mayoría de los pacientes con deficiencia de esta vitamina y que la falta de respuesta puede ser por el aumento insuficiente de niveles séricos de VD, por lo cual recomiendan reevaluar los niveles en quienes no respondan 20 .…”