Vitamin D Testing

Vitamin D for Canine/Feline/Equine

Vitamin D is a vital nutrient for your pet, and low amounts have been linked to a variety of difficult-to-treat diseases such as cancer, heart disease, inflammatory bowel disease, renal disease, and hyperparathyroidism. Having sufficient vitamin D helps to reduce chronic inflammation, boost immunity, and promotes a healthy body. However, unlike in humans where vitamin D is made from sunlight, your pet's primary source of vitamin D is from their food. By wellness-checking regularly for serum levels of Vitamin D3, those patients with insufficient levels of Vitamin D3 can be identified and supplemented accurately with a Vitamin D3 supplement.

Testing Vitamin D Levels:

Vitamin D levels can be check by a simple blood test. The laboratory we use is Veterinary Diagnostics Institute or VDI Labs and they have a great resource section on their website to answer all your Vitamin D questions.

If the doctor is getting blood from an animal for the first time then the recommendation may be to get an INCaSe-D Wellness Panel done, which detects disease, asseses cancer risk, and includes a Vitamin D level. This test will give the doctor an excellent baseline of health. Depending on results, a Vitamin D can be checked as recommended by doctor thereafter.

Once samples are frozen and shipped overnight, the results then take a few days to process. Results are sent via our account and we will email you the results for your animal’s records. IF it’s found your animal is insufficient in his/her Vitamin D levels then a Vitamin D supplement and dosing will be recommended. Important to Note: A monthly follow-up test is recommended to check Vitamin D levels to insure safe and adequate dosing, and testing thereafter will be recommended by the doctor according to VDI Labs results.

Vitamin D Supplement:

If your animal is found insufficient in Vitamin D, the doctor will prescribe a Vitamin D supplement. PLEASE NOTE: Owner’s should keep in mind is that Vitamin D toxicity is actually much more common than vitamin D deficiency, so if it’s found your animal is insufficient in Vitamin D then correct dosing and monitoring is essential to ensure optimal health. We highly recommend following dosing instructions and not going off script with this particular supplement because you CAN cause harm to your animal.

As with any medication and/or supplement, it’s NEVER recommended to start giving an animal a medication and/or supplement and then stop. Please be aware that if you start a medication and/or supplement and then stop for any reason the testing process will have to start again from the beginning. The reason for this is the first test is to identify the insufficiency and correct with a supplement; followed by the patient taking the supplement for a period time and to recheck levels to ensure dosing is correct. Once stable then Vitamin D level checks will have to be checked less often as recommended by the doctor.