Vitamin D3 causing tension headaches

[manu08]

tl;dr I have been taking D3 a while and currently experience near daily tension headaches. If I stop taking the D3, the tension headaches go away, until I take it again. I have been consistent in my other drug usage (primarily emgality) and diet. I have replicated this several times and am not sure how to approach maintaining high hydroxy 25 levels without D3 supplementation. Any ideas?

Longer version:

I have dealt with tension and migraine headaches most of my life. Both were episodic until 2 years ago when I went chronic. I know some folks consider them the same, but I find their patterns and profiles very distinct. By tension I mean front/center of head pressure that develops into a headache, rarely severe pain, but painful enough to be impactful. My migraines are unilateral or rear of head, and seem to cause light sensitivity, ear aches, sinus congestion, and the headaches are worse, occasionally severe.

Once I went chronic for migraines I started doing standard supplementation with riboflavin, magnesium, and riboflavin and it didn't help. I then aded D3 (5k IUs per day). It didn't seem to help much, but I continued taking it because I know I'm D3 deficient if I don't supplement. In December 2024 I developed cluster headaches and quickly found and upped my D3 for a loading dose then normalized to 10k IUs per day to maintain my hydroxy 25 levels ~100ng/mL. This seems to have worked well for cluster headaches, but I'll have more confidence if I make it through this coming Dec/Jan without a cycle.

In any case, I've also since gotten my migraines under control via emgality. The D3 regimen itself didn't seem to affect my migraines or tension headaches. That leaves me with the near daily tension headaches. I've been trying elimination diets without success, but I became suspicious of my supplements because I accidentally missed a couple doses and noticed I didn't have the tension headaches. I then intentionally re-tested multiple times and the pattern is consistent. 

I wondered if it wasn't the D3 itself but something in the pill, so I tried different brands (Now and Pure Encapsulations) which have distinct ingredients aside from the D3, but that didn't help. I have noticed the tension headache pain is somewhat linear to the dose (10k IU is clearly more painful than 5k IU dose). I plan to keep testing lower doses to see if I can get away with 1-3K IUs per day without pain, but I'm hopeful this community can provide suggestions with alternative approaches since dropping that low will of course put my hydroxy 25 levels significantly below D3 regimen targets.

[CHfather]

Perhaps Batch @xxx will have suggestions.