TWO UPDATES in 2026: 1) This page was updated in February 2026 to provide a new link to the video discussing how vitamin D deficiency causes and amplifies various types of pain. 2) Additionally, four (4) more videos have been included toward the bottom of this page specific to treatments and paradigms in chronic pain management.
Questions answered in this video:
How does vitamin D deficiency result in chronic severe pain?
What are the 3 main mechanisms by which vitamin D deficiency results in pain amplification and chronification?
What are another 3-6 mechanisms by which deficiency of vitamin D results in pain amplification/chronification?
How common is vitamin D deficiency?
How is vitamin D deficiency treated, and what are the optimal levels of vitamin D as measured by the blood test 25-hydroxy-vitaminD?
My publications specific to vitamin D (not all of them) See PDF download provided below/including the infographic on laboratory interpretation:
PDF INCLUDED BELOW: Vasquez A, Manso G, Cannell J. The clinical importance of vitamin D (cholecalciferol): a paradigm shift with implications for all healthcare providers. Altern Ther Health Med. 2004 Sep-Oct;10(5):28-36; quiz 37, 94. PMID: 15478784.
Vasquez A. Health care for our bones: a practical nutritional approach to preventing osteoporosis. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2005 Mar-Apr;28(3):213. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2005.02.004. PMID: 15855912.
Vasquez A, Cannell J. Calcium and vitamin D in preventing fractures: data are not sufficient to show inefficacy. BMJ. 2005 Jul 9;331(7508):108-9; author reply 109. doi: 10.1136/bmj.331.7508.108-b. PMID: 16002891; PMCID: PMC558659.
Gordon CM, Williams AL, Feldman HA, May J, Sinclair L, Vasquez A, Cox JE. Treatment of hypovitaminosis D in infants and toddlers. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jul;93(7):2716-21. doi: 10.1210/jc.2007-2790. Epub 2008 Apr 15. PMID: 18413426; PMCID: PMC2729207.
Muanza DN, Vasquez A, Cannell J, Grant WP. Isoflavones and postmenopausal women. JAMA. 2004 Nov 17;292(19):2337; author reply 2337. doi: 10.1001/jama.292.19.2337-a. PMID: 15547158.
VIDEO REVIEW: Vitamin D against Chronic Pain, Low-Back Pain, Migraine [GOLDMINE1]
Author and presenter: Dr Alex Vasquez
Production: Studio recording in high (1080) definition
Date: March 2021
Effort: Several years of study in basic sciences, clinical sciences, clinical practice, lecturing to post-graduate audiences internationally, research review, publication of major clinical monograph (Integrative Medicine 2004), summary letter (British Medical Journal 2005), letter on CRPS and fibromyalgia (Nature Reviews Rheumatology 2016) and many others available for free PDF download; please see “Compilation of Vitamin D articles and letters 2004-2020 by Dr Alex Vasquez” from ichnfm.academia.edu/AlexVasquez. Videos typically require 1 week of preparation, 2 hours of recording, and 8 hours of editing per finished hour of video.
Beyond my publications on vitamin D are my publications on chronic pain, migraine, and fibromyalgia
Chapter 5, Section 2 focuses on migraine headaches, which I assert originate from the additive/synergistic combination of mitochondrial dysfunction, glial activation, and neuroinflammation; as such, migraine and its related variant cluster headache can reasonably be categorized as manifestations of metabolic inflammation (primarily) resulting in neuroinflammation (secondarily). This work originated from my teaching notes (Orthopedics, Basty University, 2000) clinical textbooks (Integrative Orthopedics, 2004, 2012) and clinical monographs (Musculoskeletal Pain, 2008) and has been updated for more than 25 years of literature review and personal/clinical experience. My migraine and fibromyalgia protocols both received quantum leaps in their respective details and illustrations for the 2016 publication of Inflammation Mastery 4th Edition, based on better understandings of metabolic and dysbiotic contributions to neuroinflammation in migraine and fibromyalgia, respectively. Also, very important to the further development of these understandings and protocols was my personal experience with dysbiosis-induced fibromyalgia starting in 1995 (and lasting for many years) and then later developing complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) in 2020; my struggles with and permanent victories over both of these conditions attests to my understandings of these conditions, which is reflected in the descriptions illustrations, and protocols. Finally, of additional note are a few of my publications related to these topics (listed herein, below) and my 2-hour 2019 conference presentation on fibromyalgia which is archived online at HealthyThinking.substack.com/p/vasquez-fibromyalgia-protocol-2019 and InflammationMastery.substack.com/p/vasquez-fibromyalgia-protocol-houston.
Vasquez A. Biological plausibility of the gut-brain axis in autism. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2017 Nov
Vasquez A. Neuroinflammation in fibromyalgia and CRPS is multifactorial. Nat Rev Rheumatol 2016 Apr
Vasquez A. Mitochondrial Medicine Arrives to Prime Time in Clinical Care: Nutritional Biochemistry and Mitochondrial Hyperpermeability (”Leaky Mitochondria”) Meet Disease Pathogenesis and Clinical Interventions. Integr Med(Encinitas). 2014 Aug PMC4566442 also published in Altern Ther Health Med 2014 Winter
Vasquez A. Musculoskeletal Pain: Expanded Clinical Strategies. Commissioned and published by the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) in 2008
Vasquez A. Interventions [for pediatric migraine] need to be consistent with osteopathic philosophy. J Am Osteopath Assoc 2006 Sep
And of course much more detail and more clinical applications are detailed in INFLAMMATION MASTERY 4TH EDITION:
