I was prescribed 3-5000 iu daily and then I changed doctors. When I asked about continuing the vitamin the new doctors said "I won't recommend doing a test because almost everyone has low vit d levels, even with daily supplements. Just keep taking the pills. As long as its not a very high dose you should be fine".

My wife has a different doctor who does regular vitamin testing, she was prescribed 5000iu and a year and a half later her tests barely read "normal", still being on the borderline.

Supplements never replace beeing outside exposed to sun where your body got vit. D naturally.

> I should clarify by what I obviously meant that doctors would not recommend that as a DAILY dose - daily implying long-term use is okay.

Yes, and I'm saying that this does in fact happen.

Concur - I was diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency and my doctor prescribed an initial regimen of prescription tablets at 50,000 IU and then suggested 3,000-5,000 IU daily.

Might also depend where you live. My doctor did as yours, but I live in northern New England where we don't typically expose our skin to the sun for months at a time. Perhaps doctors closer to the tropics assume at least a low level of sun exposure?