See, I went in for my long put off Well Woman Checkup last week and besides being told, “Hooray, you’re 40! You’ve earned a Mammogram!”, I was told that I was “extremely Vitamin D deficient”. As in, on a range of 30-80, with 50-70 being optimum, I have a 10. So, basically, almost none.

My doctor apologized and said “We’ve been telling you to take precaustions with the sun, but apparently we are doing *too* good of a job”. Of note, the American Association of Dermatology doesn’t want you getting your Vitamin D from the sun anyway. Shocking! Not so much. Anyway, it seems that Vitamin D deficiency is on the rise, too – to where possibly 70% – 80% of the population are deficient. Most scary is the large amount of children that could be affected and having issues growing up.

Personally, after reading about the variety of things that Vitamin D deficiency can affect (*aches, pains, hair loss, mood, etc) I think I can possibly attribute a lot of things that I thought were random & unrelated to this root cause. Like, hair loss? Easily explained away by all of the different products I try stressing it out. Difficulty remembering things? I multi-task like a fiend. Plus, my attention span has dwindled down to 140-character bytes. Dozing off to sleep at my desk in the afternoon? What? My job’s boring. Hip aches? I’m a big girl, duh, I’m going to be achy, right? Oh, one of the things is that Diabetes & Vitamin D deficiency have a link. “They” can’t determine which influences which the most, but the tie is there.

Well, my Dr has put me on a 50Kul/wk for 12 wk megadose regimen to jump start my absorption & prescribed me 1K/day FOREVER (<-her CAPS). Also, to help reduce any potential bone loss due to the lack of Calcium (*what little I take in) absorption with the deficiency, she wants me to start incorporating more activity in my lifestyle, which I am now doing by walking on a regular basis (*to help ward off that diabetes/vit d link, too). And when I walk, I tweet (*okay, really, when *don’t* I tweet?), so I’ve started using the hashtag #VitD4Me to kind of track my tweets having to do with what’s going on with this.

So, long story longer, I want you to make sure that when you go in for your annual Well Woman Checkup (*which I know you do faithfully), that you will get your Vitamin D levels tested. If only to reassure you that it’s all good, or maybe to try to explain away that mysterious “something” going on with you. I’ll tell you this – a month ago, I got tired at just the thought of walking a mile and yesterday I walked 3miles – *before work*. Who am I?!?

Now, tell me – have any of you been diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency? Did any of even realize that it was/could be an issue? I didn’t, but let me know if you did.

This also means you will not to get read my direct tweets about what I am doing in NYC. BUT! I *will* be retweeting a lot of the action from some of the other lovelies that are there at the tents. In addition to those, MAC Cosmetics has provided a twiter widget, which you can see in the right sidebar, that showcases tweets from their artists directly backstage at the tents. Also, if you have a particular MAC makeup artist you want to follow exclusively, check out MAC Artists Tweets and follow them individually. And if *THAT* isn’t enough fashion week info for you, you can search twitter #NYFW hashtag and see what EVERYONE that uses that tag is saying. (*WARNING* – could definitely lead to information overload – esp when several are at the same show at the same time.)

Oh, speaking of twitter/information overload – American Express, one of the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week sponsors has provided an electronic board, inside the tent, that displays live tweets that use the hashtag #amexmbfw. I think it is really cool for such a big company to embrace people tweeting – a great way to instantly show the people in the tents immediate reaction to things. Love it!

So, there you have it lovelies – even tho I am not there, I will def be here, using a bunch of different means, to still bring you my perspective on what goes on at NYFW. I hope you enjoy it.

*UPDATE*: While I was writing this today, news broke that fashion designer, Alexander McQueen, had committed suicide. (*You might remember that I discussed his Armadillo Shoes back in November). It came as quite a shock & put a black cloud over the start of Fashion Week. RIP.

This opportunity is so amazing to me, and has shown me just how generous people really can be. I continue to be amazed at the kindness I am shown on a daily basis. Bah, enough of the mushy stuff – I’ll be all mushy and thankful when I get home and am not cursing them all for me being so exhausted.

So, just like when I went to The Makeup Show earlier this year, I’m going to be blowing up my twitter feed with everything I am doing. So, now is either going to be a really great time to follow me or a really good time to take a break. I’ll leave it up to you.