prenatal vitamins

[Lynn15]

has anyone had difficulty with prenatal vitamins? I've started taking them and have had some pain, but I'm not sure it is them. i know they have a lot in them. just wondering if anyone else has experienced problems. if so, any alternatives?
thanks!

[severa marandus]

hi i am not sure Iam taking prenatals too i dont seem to have any more symptoms than usual but yet again i got pregnant two weeks after the dx so I am still learning about the ic business itself. I dont know about the alternative but that is a good question hopefully someone will reply soon and I will let you know if i find out anything. If you are pregnant congrats and god luck. Sorry i couldnt be much help.

[meme]

I can't take prenatals because of the vitamin c and b. My baby doc said to make sure and take folic acid and calcium and that would be just as good as the prenatals. I've had really good luck with that so far.

[LeeAnn]

I'm very diet sensitive and cannot tolerate vitamins in any form. I have tried taking just folate (as I am a woman of child bearing age) but it makes my bladder burn terribly. Multivitamins all contain vitamins B and C. And actually folate (aka folic acid) is one of the B vitamins. I just gave up. I tried taking a multimineral for a while but realized that too was causing a flare, perhaps there are too many artificial fillers and ingredients. My ob/gyn said that I need to just make sure I eat enough broccoli and legumes to get enough of the folate to prevent spinal cord defects during pregancy. Once I stopped taking vitamins my IC symptoms were greatly reduced. Even boxed cereals irritate my bladder and I honestly think the reason is because cereals are artificially fortified with tons of vitamins. Companies literally spray vitamins onto the cereals in liquid form and that is the reason cereals have so many vitamins in them. A nutritionist at the hospital I used to work at told me that is why they irritate my bladder. Anyhow, I wished I had listened to my urologist and stopped taking those stupid vitamins sooner. I had no idea how much they were contributing to my frequency and pain until I had stopped for about a month.

[Lynn15]

thanks for your feedback. I am actually in a lot of pain currently...it just kept getting worse every day i'd take the vitamin. I have stopped to see if i get better. i'll talk to my ob to get his suggestions.
thanks!

[LeeAnn]

When I take vitamins they actually flare me up for several days, if not an entire week....so you might want to try a whole week off and see how you feel.

I don't know if you guys think I'm crazy or what, but in April I started keeping SERIOUS records. I made up a weekly chart of my typical meds that I take. When I take them, I check them off during the day (as you can see in my sig I take a lot). At the end of the day, I write about my bladder, how I felt that day, etc. I use smiley faces and frowney faces at the very bottom of the day. "Okay" days are just a flat line with eyeballs instead of a smile or frown, ha ha. On a separate sheet of paper I have a pee pee log. It has a column for each day of the week with little boxes. I keep it next to the toilet and when I go potty, I write it down. When I'm at the grocery store or out in public I just keep a mental count and write it down later. Sometimes, on bad days, I have to take the piece of paper with me.

At the end of the week, I put these records in a folder. I've been doing this since April. Keeping such a detailed record has finally helped me identify my triggers and most of them are food or pills.

My regular doctor looked at me like I was crazy when I said folic acid was irritating to my bladder, but my urogyn who specialized in IC was not surprised. She told me to eat more leafy green vegetables and to skip the prenatal vitamins as long as I ate a balanced diet. You can get vitamin C by eating broccoli---you don't have to have citrus (those kinds of fruits irritate my IC). I used to eat black beans to get folic acid but I've recently realized they irritate my bladder too.

OH YEAH! I almost forgot b/c I've been using this for a couple of months also. I use this other site to track my diet. There is a really cool site called SparkPeople.com where you can register for free and it's totally FREE and you can actually track whatever nutrients you want!!!!

You can track folic acid (folate), calories, fat, fiber, vitamin C, ANY nutrient you can think of!

It also keeps a record of whatever you eat and uses this info to calculate how much of these nutrients you are eating.

So if you're concerned about whether or not you are getting all the nutrients you need from food then you should check out that website!!!! It's very easy to use and it will track whether or not you met your "Vitamin C Goal" or whatever goals that you set it to.

[melanie626]

I take flinstones type which has enough folic acid for baby, ask your OB- I cant' tolerate the full prenatal. I seem to do OK on that.