DIY UVB Lamp

[aaron_c]

If you want a narrow-band UV-B lamp, but don't want to pay $600 or so (which is what they cost on Amazon nowadays) you can "DIY" your own for about $100:

Narrow Band UV-B Light ($61)

Lucky Herp T8 Reptile Light Fixture ($40)

If you want to DIY your own "broadband" UV-B light then it's even easier--get a reptile UV-B light. Because I have not tried any and have no opinions on which are most suitable I'll just provide a general link, but I have heard from someone who uses these and likes them.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=reptile+uvb+light

In either case, protect your eyes while the lamp is on. There are glasses made specially to block UV light, but I have, in a pinch, closed my eyes and turned my back to the light.

Make sure to keep the lamp a safe distance from you--I think the manufactuerers have guidelines specific to their bulbs, but in the past I've aimed for about half a meter, so that it can bathe all of my uncovered skin (I believe it is recommended to uncover as much of your body as practically possibly--maybe just your upper or lower half--so that you don't try to get all of your UV-B just from light on your face and wind up burning yourself). I find that 5-10 minutes per day with the narrow band light is sufficient to ward off depression in the winter. I notice if I skip a few days. Whether that is a recommended dose or not, I can't say. But I've not experieenced any burning from it.


Narrow Band Vs Broad Band

The argument for a narrow band UV-B light over a typical UV-B light, is that while it provides UV-B light, it does so mostly towards the longer end of the spectrum--mostly around 310 NM. This seems particularyl helpful for psoriasis, but also it avoids the lower end where burning can occur. Here are several images from solarcsystems.com that tell the story pretty well:

The website also claims it is best for producing vitamin D, but I admit that eyeballing the curves of what narrow band vs broadband UVB bulbs produce, I'm not sure which is better. The ratio of sunburn : Vitamin D might be slightly better. I'm not sure, see for yourself:

FWIW I'm not totally sold on narrow band being better than broadband UVB lights, but narrow band is what I've tried, and it is what the vitamindwiki recommended back when their DIY UVB lamp links worked better. If you want to get UVB and avoid both UVA and the lower UVB wavelengths that contribute to sunburn, then get a narrow band UVB light. If you regard yourself as a lizard who requires a broader spectrum of light including more UVA and the lower bounds of UVB, then get a regular UVB light--they appear to be sold as reptile UV-B lights, though I haven't found a similar spectrum graph for them so I can't tell for sure. Note that UVB does not pass through glass but UVA generally does (though not if you have special kinds of treated windows). So if you get direct sunlight you will be getting UVA that way, and might not want to get extra via this light.

Let me know how UV light has or hasn't helped you. I posted mostly because I was frustrated with the dead links on the vitamin D wiki and thought someone else might want to get an inexpensive narrow band UV-B light, or try a cheap broadband one.

Cheers!

 

[aaron_c]

Also just to add my own person experience here;

A while back I was trying really hard to increase my vitamin D. Long story short, I went to great lenghts to mitigate the side effects of taking moderate doses of oral vitamin d, but it was always a "swalled a spider to catch the fly" situation where even succesfully fixing the fatigue or boron loss from vitamin D resulted in other problems I could not find a way to fix.

UV-B got around almost all of these issues. The benefits were somewhat less pronounced than on perhaps my best days taking a high amount of vitamin D (I was in quite a good mood there for about 24 hours) but the benefits were stable, and didn't come with any side effects. The main benefit for me was a great reduction in a constellation of syptoms: "Blood or lymph isn't moving properly" feeling; depression; and brainfog (which was different from my typical brainfog). All of these improved with UV-B, to where I rarely experienced them.

I wrote up some thoughts on why some folks have difficulty with vitamin D a while back, if anyone is interested. If I recall correctly I fixed the "vitamin d causees fatigue" issue by taking a high dose of MK-4 (a form of Vitamin K2), which is a lipoxygenase inhibitor, as well as by taking some vitamin A. It was a while back though, so I may not be remembering this perfectly. But MK-4 does inhibit 12-Lipoxygenase. So even though the study I found on vitamin D and high TGF-Beta only found they induce 5-lipoxygenase, I still think I was on to something, since it did wind up working). And I do think that some people will need to take some combination of these to avoid fatigue even from a uv-b lamp.

 

[Blazer95]

I always decline in winter so this is potentially very useful for me. Thanks.