Why do my iron tablets make me sick?

Why does my iron supplement make me feel sick?

Did your doctor prescribe an iron supplement that’s too upsetting on the tummy to follow through? Did they cause constipation or diarrhea? Black stools? Nausea and stomach cramps? This is very common with synthetic prescription or over the counter iron tablets and sadly in many cases it doesn’t seem to have the benefits promised, so you ask yourself: why take it? Good question! At this point you toss the rest of the tablets in the garbage while thinking there has got to be a better way. The good news is that there are several things you can try out and I’ll just keep it to the most popular options for you to consider.

It’s suggested to take them on an empty stomach for best absorption with a glass of water and chances are that didn’t work out very well for you so instead, try taking them with or just after food as that may help, or try switching brands but if you just can’t tolerate it then ditch them and try changing up your diet to incorporate more iron rich foods such as lentils, spinach, beef, broccoli, eggs, chickpea, pumpkin seeds, oysters, even chocolate just to name a few, but as long as the list of beneficial iron rich foods are, some of us just can’t get enough, especially if we don’t like or can’t eat those foods. Sometimes it’s just a case of not being able to absorb iron no matter how hard we try and so we need to figure out how to improve our absorption rate as well, which leads to the next question: Is there a way to improve that? YES!

You can choose to add foods containing vitamin C to improve the absorption of iron such as fresh squeezed citrus juice, citrus fruits themselves or you can incorporate sustained released vitamin C tablets throughout the day, or if that’s not your thing you can try sucking or chewing on chewable vitamin C tablets. Vitamin A or Beta-carotone ( CarotoMax ) can also help as well as eating meat, fish or poultry.

Did you know that calcium, an essential mineral, actually inhibits the absorption of both heme iron and non-heme iron? It could be that reducing your consumption of dairy, sardines, almonds, as well as other calcium rich foods could solve your dilemna. Failing all of that you can try a combined tablet of iron plus vitamin C, and I like this one in particular as it has a high absorption rate while being super gentle on the body, after all, isn’t a supplement supposed to help you, not hurt you?