Vitamin supplements can help maintain the body's many functions and processes. But taking too many vitamins can have serious health consequences. Children in particular run the risk of overdosing by accidentally taking vitamins with adult dosing or by taking too many children's vitamins, which sometimes resemble candy.
Vitamin A Toxicity
Vitamin A helps maintain healthy bones, teeth, and skin. It also helps preserve low- light vision, and aids the immune system in fighting off infections. Too much vitamin A is also known as hypervitaminosis A. According to the National Library of Medicine, symptoms of vitamin A toxicity include blurry and double vision, drowsiness and dizziness, decreased appetite and poor weight gain. An excess of vitamin A in children can cause softening of the skull, a condition known as craniotabes; and in infants it can cause a bulging fontanelle, or soft spot. Vitamin A toxicity also causes hair loss, sensitivity to sunlight and skin peeling and itching.
Thiamine Toxicity
Thiamine, also known as vitamin B1, is one of the B vitamins. It helps the body convert sugars to energy and it also helps maintain the health of muscles, the heart and the nervous system. Vitamin B1 overdose is rare, and it is usually caused by multivitamin overdose, or by multiple injections. Symptoms of thiamine toxicity include rapid heart rate, low blood pressure, arrhythmias, or abnormal heart rhythms, and seizures.
Pyridoxine Overdose
Pyridoxine, or vitamin B6, is also part of the B vitamin group. Just like the other B vitamins, pyridoxine helps in the processing of sugars, fats, and proteins into energy. Pyridoxine is also important in the maintenance of a healthy nervous system, and in the manufacturing of neurotransmitters, the chemicals neurons use to communicate with each other. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, too much pyridoxine can cause loss of sensation--particularly in the legs-- loss of coordination and sense of balance, burning pains, diminished reflexes and loss of position and vibration senses.
Vitamin D Toxicity
Vitamin D helps promote the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from the intestines, making it important in the maintenance of proper bone growth, development and healing. Excess vitamin D causes an increase in the level of calcium in the bloodstream, resulting in bone pain, weakness, headaches, nausea, vomiting and anorexia. Other symptoms include constipation, high blood pressure and cardiac arrhythmias.
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