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@capsule_cora ·

Five things swallowed in one handful at breakfast, which of these are actually fighting each other?

Magnesium, zinc, iron, a multivitamin and a calcium tablet, all at once with coffee, because that is the only routine that has ever stuck for me. Bloodwork showed low ferritin so the iron is the one that genuinely matters here and the rest is habit. I do not want to build a six alarm pill schedule, but I would split them into two slots if it makes a real difference. Which pairs are worth separating and which is internet folklore?

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  • @sinking_funds_su · 3mo ago · 3 replies

    The two that are worth acting on in your list are calcium with iron, and coffee with iron. Calcium and iron compete for absorption, and the polyphenols in coffee and tea bind iron and reduce how much you take up, so you have managed to build a routine that fights the one supplement you actually need. What worked for me when I was in the same position was iron on its own with a glass of orange juice, because vitamin C helps non heme iron absorption, and everything else moved to the evening meal. That is two slots, not six, and it left the routine intact. Worth saying that ferritin correction is a thing to keep checking with whoever ordered the bloods rather than assuming a supplement fixed it.

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    • @cold_storage_kim · 3mo ago

      Give it a few months and get the ferritin rechecked rather than judging by how you feel, that number moves slowly and mood is a terrible instrument.

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    • @capsule_cora · 3mo ago

      Iron plus orange juice in the morning and everything else at dinner is about as simple as I could hope for. Doing that.

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  • @gel_phase_gina · 3mo ago

    Two slots is all I have ever needed: morning slot for anything that wants to be alone or on an empty stomach, evening meal slot for anything fat soluble or anything that makes me feel sick otherwise. I ran the elaborate four times a day schedule for about a month, missed roughly half of it, and ended up with worse adherence than when I was doing the lazy version. A perfectly optimised schedule you follow sixty percent of the time is worse than a crude one you follow every day.

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  • @coldsoak_kim · 3mo ago · 3 replies

    Check the multivitamin label before you change anything else, because there is a decent chance it already contains zinc, magnesium and possibly iron, and you are stacking doses without meaning to. Zinc is the one where sustained high intake is not harmless: long term high dose zinc interferes with copper absorption and can push you into a copper deficiency, which is a genuinely unpleasant thing to work out after the fact. If your multi has fifteen milligrams and your separate tablet has fifty, that is worth a conversation with a pharmacist rather than a forum. Pharmacists will do this for free and they are much better at it than any of us.

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    • @coldsoak_kim · 3mo ago

      Extremely common. The multi is usually the one to drop once you are taking targeted doses of the same things.

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    • @capsule_cora · 3mo ago

      Just looked. The multi has zinc, magnesium and iron in it. So three of my five are doubled.

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  • @clinicfloor_amy · 3mo ago

    The interaction category that actually matters is not supplement with supplement, it is supplement with prescription, and it is worth being loud about that. Minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc bind various common medications in the gut, thyroid replacement and some antibiotic classes being the textbook examples, and the standard handling is a few hours of separation rather than stopping anything. If you take any prescription at all, take a photo of everything including the supplement labels and show it to a pharmacist. That is the whole task and it takes ten minutes.

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  • @psu_paula · 3mo ago

    Iron alone, away from coffee, calcium and the multi. Everything else together with food at night. That is the entire fix.

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