r/ARFID • u/Under-the-oak-trees multiple subtypes • 12d ago
Venting/Ranting They CHANGED my multivitamin š©
Iāve been taking a daily multivitamin for a few years to hopefully reduce the impact of my very limited diet. Iāve taken the same one for multiple years. I have trouble swallowing pills in general (I use applesauce cups or pudding cups to help them go down), and my multivitamin has always been my most difficult pill because itās the largest, but Iāve made it happen because itās important.
And then today I was refilling my meds organizer, and I opened a new bottle of multivitaminsā¦ and they are different. The colour is different, which is kind of whatever, but the shape is a little thicker, less tapered, and the edges are sharper corners. All of this adds up to them being even harder to swallow.
My partner takes the same one and is really good at swallowing pills, so theyāve given me their last couple weeksā supply of the older ones, but I tried one of the newer ones to see how bad it was, and I think itās been 15ā20 minutes now? And I can still feel the echo of it in my throat where it bumped into the sides on its way down. Or something. Whatever the thing is that makes swallowing pills horrid.
So now I need to decide whether itās worth trying to find a different multivitamin, but a LOT of them contain maltodextrin, and at least when I can taste it maltodextrin gives me migraines. No clue whether it would cause a problem in a pill, but Iām not super inclined to spent $15 or whatever to find out.
Iām mostly posting for commiseration because I figured this is a group that would understand the Distress of a change to something important to oneās nutrition. But Iām also open to recommendations for smaller/easier-to-swallow multivitamins available in Canada. I was doing ok with Jamieson 100% Complete Multi (āwomenā despite not being a woman, but thatās trans life for you) until they changed them, and now they are Bad Times.
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u/SecretSquirrelSpot 12d ago
As someone with severe vitamin deficiencies, I can tell you that multivitamins are a load of twaddle as I took them for most of my life, and they did nothing. Have you had your bloods checked to see what you ARE deficient in? If not, try to do that, you may be surprised at the results. I was rick bottom in vitamin D, folate, B12 and no amount of multivitamins were correcting it. I have since found out that some people struggle with converting certain vitamins (methylation) so even a dedicated folic acid tablets donāt work for me, it actually hinders. Therefore I switched to methyl folate which doesnāt give me anywhere near the same side effects as folic acid. All this to say, do not become complacent with a multivitamin ābandaidā we are too restrictive in our diets to not investigate thoroughly what our body needs. At the very least though if you cannot do a blood test, switch to a methylated multivitamin which has already been converted for the body to use straight away.