How long do they last before you need to replenish your stocks. How long does it take them to flush out of the body? Whenever I take a multivitamin in the morning, I wake up in the night to go to the toilet. I know the two are probably unrelated and I have just embarrassed myself 
Water soluble vitamins, which are all of them except A and D, should be taken daily. Your nightly urination may be due to the excess water you drink when swallowing them. If I had to get up only once in the night to void, I’d be happy. But I’m 74 and getting up several times at night is par for the course, I guess.
Thanks barbitu8. I take them in the morning and I swallow them without water, so excess water cant be the reason
It is unnecessary for most people with a reasonably normally varied diet to take vitamin supplements at all (with the possible exception of D, if you don’t get much sun).
Yes, water-soluble vitamins (or rather ones excess to requirements) flush out of your system fairly quickly, but that is not a problem if you are getting them from your diet, as you almost certainly are.
As you suspect, your night urination problem is not caused by your morning multivitamin habit. Actually, depending on your age, it may not be a ‘problem’ (as opposed to an annoyance) at all. Most people (men, anyway) once they get fairly well into middle age, have to get up to pee at least once a night. If you are in your teens or your twenties though, and not loading up with liquids before bedtime, it might be worth seeing a doctor.
A, D, E, and K are the fat-soluble vitamins. You CAN OD on them, because they are stored in the body.
Other vitamins and minerals are water soluble, but we do have a limited supply in reserve. Your body is pretty smart, though. If you take more of the water soluble vitamins than you need, the body will usually excrete the excess in your urine.
If you want to be really in-the-know, take a peek at your urine color several hours after taking your vitamins. It will usually be a bright yellow–that’s the excess Vitamin B. You might even smell a “vitamin-y” aroma from the bright yellow urine.
That’s why mega doses of water soluble vitamins are wasteful. You end up flushing away what your body doesn’t want.
There have been cases of people who have taken prolonged mega doses of Vitamin C. If they STOP taking the mega doses, they develop scurvy.
If you are still going tinkle too frequently, see your doctor.
~VOW
On a related note, when is enough of a water-soluable vitamin enough? Many people think they can pop Vitamin C tablets all day becuase they taste like candy, are healthy, and are water soluable. Well, every aqueous solution has a saturation point! I wonder if the excess doesn’t precipitate out into kidney or gall stones, as examples? Surely, there is a limit, but what?
Any SDope on this? Any links one can cite?
Is there a point in striving to get 100% RDA of vitamins through my diet? Is it really necessary.
Depends on what you are eating. If fast food makes up the bulk of your diet, if you rarely eat fruits and veggies, if you completely shun dairy products or other calcium-containing foods, a multi-vitamin is a good idea to prevent beri-beri or scurvy.
If you are a die-hard Atkins participant, you’d need that multi-vitamin. I’d advise getting some fiber into your diet ASAP.
Americans on the whole get far, far too much protein, and an abundance of refined foods. That spells major digestive troubles later on down the line, so make sure you keep all your colonoscopy appointments.
OTOH, if you eat lots of veggies, whole grains, get plenty of calcium, you’ll probably get the RDA of all the vitamins and minerals–with the exception of iron. Women need lots of the stuff, and a supplement might be a good idea.
I’m a vegetarian. Dairy is often my only daily food containing protein. I probably get too little protein. I think I’m okay otherwise.
Most Americans eat more protein than their bodies require (~0.65g/kg/d), but I’m not aware of any evidence that we’re consuming “far, far too much protein.”
Probably not. That is to say, you are probably getting 100% or more without really striving, and if your intake drops a bit below the full RDA for a day or two, it is not going to matter. There is a good bit of wiggle room in the figures.
Oh, well in that case, possibly, except that milk is a very good source of vitamins, so you are probably still OK (including for D which is both found naturally in milk, and often added to it). It is the vegans rather than regular vegetarians that tend to have vitamin deficiency problems. The main problem there is with B12, which most people get from meat or other animal products (including milk). You can get B12 from yeast extracts, however, such as Marmite (I assume that is how vegans manage).
IME too much vitamin C can make the need to urinate painful. The same thing happens if I drink a lot of tea or soda.
I suspect that it acidifies the urine, and that irritates the bladder. Thus I’ll feel the urgent need to go, but when I do, there’s really not all that much urine.
So, if I’ve taken a “simple” multi-vitamin, (one with no megadoses that just helps me reach the 100% RDA) then I don’t wake up to urinate. But if I’ve taken one with a vitamin C mega-dose, then the need will wake me and I’ll be running for the toilet.
It might help to check your supplement and see if it’s just over- board on the dosing. If so and you want to finish out the supply, try consciously drinking 2-3 glasses of water with lunch, so the excess can clear itself out in the afternoon hours.
I disagree that supplements are always a waste. Like all things - moderation is key. I do take a multi-vitamin with a chelated multi-mineral with iron with dinner, and a calcium/vitamin D/fiber chew with breakfast. My diet is fairly good, and I’m slowly losing weight, but I never know when I’ll get side-swiped and I like to keep all the tanks full at all times for when I suddenly have to hit the McDrive-thru or go hungry.
I am also Vegetarian, and my iron was dropping each doctor visit. Since the typical iron losses had been eliminated (too old for periods, no GI bleeding), it appeared I had finally used up my iron stores and was not getting enough from my diet. After trying to eat more veggies with iron, I realized it just wasn’t working for me. I finally added an iron supplement.
BOY what a difference in how I felt!
~VOW
Dr. Linus Pauling took a maintenance dose of 18 grams. The isolater of vitamin C, Albert Svent-gyorgyi also took megadoses. Both Dr. Pauling and Dr. Svent-gyorgyi lived until age 93.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001493/#adam_000458.disease.causes:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001318/#adam_000273.disease.causes:
Vegeterarians may not only be deficient in iron, but also B-12, since both are derived primarily from animal products. Vegeterarians should take a B-12 supplement.
B-12 is present in dairy and eggs.
Strict Vegetarians, or Vegans, consume no animal products at all: no dairy, no eggs, no honey. They may develop B-12 deficiency. However, I’ve read that if Vegans get a token amount of dirt in their diets (like an unwashed, unpeeled carrot), they can consume enough microscopic organisms which will provide the B-12.
Interestingly enough, B-12 is not assimilated very well through the digestive tract. Many B-12 supplements are sublingual, meant to be dissolved under the tongue. A particular type of B-12 deficiency, Pernicious Anemia, is treated through B-12 injections.
~VOW
Most people who lack B-12, other than Vegans, lack the “intrinsic factor,” which is a glycoprotein synthesized in the stomach.