How do you know what vitamins to take?

[lockedinto]

I really want to get more into wellness (because I'm a wreck right now with stress, unhealthy food and unhealthy habits!).

I'm so confused about vitamins. There is so many.

How do you know which ones to take? Is there some sort of online quiz for this?

Bump

Im a bit on the fence about vitamins.
My consultant says they only produce expensive pee unless you are genuinely showing low in blood tests.

But on the other hand the NHS is quite good at NOT treating when your blood results are hanging onto the very low end of normal.

I do supplement B12, iron, calcium and vit D (with vit d i believe the guidance is all of us in the northern hemisphere should, and definitely in the winter).
I also take Magnesium at night and i believe it helps my sleep.

There is absolutely a massive push on social media for every type of magical vitamin preparation going and I am really sucked in. Only by the saving grace of being an absolute tightwad have I not succumbed yet.

I do want to try NVM, but i cant find a really reputable company, a lot seem to be B vitamins pretending to turn into NVM but that cant happen until later in the process so its a case of smoke and mirrors.

My sister was wanting to try the tanning vitamins when we looked into it the only actual active ingredient (or should i say ingredient at a percentage over 1%) was l-tyroncene. Instead of £30 for 30 days, she got an £8 bottle for 3 months.

I take combined b vitamins and vit D, I think they are beneficial for women's health, vit d because well northern brittish and lack of sun.

Get a blood test. I use Lola health as they include the cost of a nurse home visit to draw blood - finger prick tests never work on me for some reason. I can never get enough blood to fill the tube.

I've had a few now and the first one I was apprehensive about as I felt truly awful. However I was only low in a couple of simple fix things and after 4 months of supplements for those exact things i'm feeling so much better.
The peace of mind that I wasn't as bad as I thought were weirdly comforting to me.

My GP was perfectly happy to prescribe the supplements I needed in the higher dosage than over the counter offerings when I sent over my blood test results.

I see a naturopath, take my full blood work up and only use naturopaths grade supplements.

im currently taking Silica for hair skin nails, B vitamins, stress ease, and magnesium at night for muscle recovery and sleep aid.

I take vitamin d and want to take magnesium for sleep and thinking of trying something like reviveactive but am torn that’ll lead down the road my mum took, in the menopause she took a lot of different vitamins and minerals and it resulted in some liver damage. They took her off most of them straight away

If you're having symptoms like tiredness then you can go to your GP and ask for blood tests, then ask to see the actual paperwork with the numbers. Anything close to a threshold, google and see whether it's worth supplementing anyway.

Or you can just take a general multivitamin perhaps aimed at women. If you go into Boots or a supermarket there are also mixes for various things like more energy, better immune support, hair & nails etc. Be careful about taking two different multivitamins at once because it is possible to overdose on vitamins and cause adverse effects.

I would be wary of the heavily marketed stuff on social media as a lot of it is very expensive and you can get the same thing from a cheaper one you can buy from a supermarket.