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Labs and Meaning of Being Low Vitamin A
Hi all,
I am new to the forum and instead of overloading you with one mega-post, I am going to ease into this slowly with smaller posts.
Can I ask, does anyone focus or feel like labs are important? I have had a series of health issues for the past several years, and came across Vitamin A. This was after having suffered a diagnosed B6 toxicity several years ago which was just as bad, if not worse, in terms of symptoms.
On a lark, I had a blood test (serum retinol) taken June 2026, and my labs were deemed NORMAL by Quest Diagnostics, but OUT OF RANGE by Goodlabs (which uses Quest Diagnostics for their testing). My level was 74 ng.
This bloodwork has been the only thing that could verify what I have gone through recently (hand and feet peeling in sheets, joint and bone pain, muscle aches, mental instability, blurry vision that strikes at odd times, general up and down days where I just feel unwell … . like crap to be honest … . my primary care doctor wrote me off as suffering from health anxiety and depression, which I do, and just prescribed painkillers and Zoloft … . when I presented him my hands and feet he just said it was nothing).
Subsequent deep dives on Perplexity and Claude AI confirm some things and demote other suspicions of mine.
But my first question is, does anyone here rely on labs and how high have your labs been at the worst?
My second question is what do you mean by low Vitamin A diet. Once I confirmed via labs, I cut my Vitamin A intake to anywhere from 0 RDA - less than 50% RDA.
At zero RDA, I tend to have really bad kickbacks (detox?) that feels awful, but at up to 50% RDA, I feel I might be getting too much? All of this is from diet by the way, no more supplements.
Thanks in advance for your feedback and future interactions. Thanks also Grant Généreux for making this platform available.
Disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion, not medical advice.
Bruce, I think you and I might be in the same boat to some extent. If I recall correctly, you have a history of cod liver oil supplementation. Me too. And I had a lot of your symptoms, including muscle aches, blurry vision occasionally, headaches, and general malaise.
Personally I do not rely on vitamin A labs, but I don't think there's any harm in doing them either. Grant has a Getting Started Guide here: https://ggenereux.blog/2026/02/02/getting-started-and-succeeding-with-the-low-vitamin-a-diet/ where he recommends 10% of the RDA. Based on personal experience, I think that's a reasonable target. If I'm not mistaken, 10% of the RDA is about 70-90 mcg RAE, which is about the amount in one egg. But 10% is the daily target, so you have to consider all possible sources.
I would like at some point to share a more detailed account of my progress, but in a nutshell I overdosed on vitamin A through high dairy consumption + supplemental sources like cod liver oil and synthetic vitamin A palmitate. I've been on a low-moderate vitamin A diet for about 2.5 years now and have noted marked improvements in headaches, sleep quality, dental pain, and overall sense of well-being, thank God.
My body weight is still quite low, and my muscle recovery rate is low, so I can't do too much exercise. But I feel quite good about the progress I've made thus far.
In terms of my diet, I'm quite relaxed in general when it comes to plant sources of vitamin A, although I generally avoid big ticket items like carrots and sweet potatoes. I do not supplement with anything, and I am very moderate with my dairy consumption.
I think the problem is that labs tell you how much vitamin A is circulating on a certain day. There is the whole rest of your body (the non-blood part) that labs tell you nothing about. And I think the body chooses how much to circulate. I'm one of those here that theorize that the body uses vitamin A as a weapon, so the blood level could be higher on some days because of fighting germs? And if nothing it attacking that day, perhaps the level is lower. I think that vitamin A usually is stored in fat and the liver.
To me, this is why we call these diseases of high vitamin A "auto-immune". Because we have too much ammunition, and when something attacks, we throw too much at it, and harm ourselves.
I also wonder if one of the things that bring us here are chronic infections such as Lyme or parasites. So that the body it always titrating out vitamin A, instead of letting it lie in storage.
I don't see anything wrong with getting labs done, as long as you know the limitations of what they tell you.
Quote from Navid on June 20, 2026, 9:06 amDisclaimer: this is just my personal opinion, not medical advice.
Bruce, I think you and I might be in the same boat to some extent. If I recall correctly, you have a history of cod liver oil supplementation. Me too. And I had a lot of your symptoms, including muscle aches, blurry vision occasionally, headaches, and general malaise.
Personally I do not rely on vitamin A labs, but I don't think there's any harm in doing them either. Grant has a Getting Started Guide here: https://ggenereux.blog/2026/02/02/getting-started-and-succeeding-with-the-low-vitamin-a-diet/ where he recommends 10% of the RDA. Based on personal experience, I think that's a reasonable target. If I'm not mistaken, 10% of the RDA is about 70-90 mcg RAE, which is about the amount in one egg. But 10% is the daily target, so you have to consider all possible sources.
I would like at some point to share a more detailed account of my progress, but in a nutshell I overdosed on vitamin A through high dairy consumption + supplemental sources like cod liver oil and synthetic vitamin A palmitate. I've been on a low-moderate vitamin A diet for about 2.5 years now and have noted marked improvements in headaches, sleep quality, dental pain, and overall sense of well-being, thank God.
My body weight is still quite low, and my muscle recovery rate is low, so I can't do too much exercise. But I feel quite good about the progress I've made thus far.
In terms of my diet, I'm quite relaxed in general when it comes to plant sources of vitamin A, although I generally avoid big ticket items like carrots and sweet potatoes. I do not supplement with anything, and I am very moderate with my dairy consumption.
Yes, I think a lot of mine is from a high quality cod liver oil , retinyl palmitate from a Vitamin D3/K2 supplement, and what I think is a LOT of beta carotene daily from a greens powder. I was taking one or more of this combo for over a year. Was fine until I wasn't.
Thanks for the link, and the information on diet suggestions. I will check it out.
Also, unrelated—does anyone know how to set my profile so I get emailed responses? The only way I know I have responses at present is to go through each of my posts.
Quote from lil chick on June 20, 2026, 10:48 amI think the problem is that labs tell you how much vitamin A is circulating on a certain day. There is the whole rest of your body (the non-blood part) that labs tell you nothing about. And I think the body chooses how much to circulate. I'm one of those here that theorize that the body uses vitamin A as a weapon, so the blood level could be higher on some days because of fighting germs? And if nothing it attacking that day, perhaps the level is lower. I think that vitamin A usually is stored in fat and the liver.
To me, this is why we call these diseases of high vitamin A "auto-immune". Because we have too much ammunition, and when something attacks, we throw too much at it, and harm ourselves.
I also wonder if one of the things that bring us here are chronic infections such as Lyme or parasites. So that the body it always titrating out vitamin A, instead of letting it lie in storage.
I don't see anything wrong with getting labs done, as long as you know the limitations of what they tell you.
Excellent advice. Yeah, I probably won't test again at least for 3 months.
Funny thing is, I do feel better at times, and then worse again.
I've read some theories that it's because the body is trying to maintain equilibrium and if you go too low, it (liver) releases more to keep serum levels high. Ugh. I hate this for us.
I second that, we're unsure how well do labs represent our vA status, it may even fluctuate throughout the same day, who knows. And it is uneasy to get a prescription just for one serum test. However users who do labs while on low vA diet usually notice a pattern of numbers lowering after months/years. (and Grant getting to almost zero) So if you have an easy access to them I think it could be of some interest for you.
Hi, I have relatively easy access to them, but my doctor won’t prescribe them. I have to pay out-of-pocket for a serum retinol test and it runs about $33.
Quote from Bruce on June 21, 2026, 3:54 amHi, I have relatively easy access to them, but my doctor won’t prescribe them. I have to pay out-of-pocket for a serum retinol test and it runs about $33.
Your situation is similar to mine, so I guess it's up to you to decide whether (or how much) you want to invest into testing.
I might test again in a month or so.