Multivitamins help you ensure that you're receiving all of your daily recommended vitamins in case you missed some in your diet. If you're eating a healthy diet that includes a wide variety of various foods, you probably don't need a multivitamin. If you have certain medical conditions, such as malabsorption disorders or vitamin deficiencies, your doctor may recommend a multivitamin. Multivitamins can cause side effects such as diarrhea. Do not take a multivitamin without physician approval.
Side Effects
It is possible to overdose on vitamins. When you take a multivitamin, an overdose is referred is to as a multiple vitamin overdose, since it is possible to overdose on more than one vitamin at a time. Side effects associated with a multiple vitamin overdose includes cloudy urine, frequent and increased urine output, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, appetite loss, stomach pain, constipation, mood changes, irritability, fatigue, fainting and yellowish orange patches of skin. You may also experience other symptoms such as mental confusion, joint and bone pain, muscle pain and weakness and seizures.
Treatment
It's important that you do not make yourself, or the person who has overdosed, throw up unless you've been instructed to do so by a health-care professional or by poison control staff. If you have overdosed on multivitamins, seek emergency medical care. Typically, the emergency room or ER will give you activated charcoal to help absorb some of the vitamins left in your stomach, or the ER may give an antidote to reverse the effects of the overdose. The ER will also take blood samples to test the vitamin levels within your body. If necessary, you may receive a gastric lavage. A gastric lavage includes inserting a tube into your mouth and down your throat to wash out the contents of your stomach.
Time Frame
A vitamin overdose, depending upon the severity of the overdose, could take a few days or up to several months to occur. Your body does not store all vitamins, as water soluble vitamins cannot be stored. Multivitamins contain trace minerals, such as copper, iron and calcium. Fat-soluble vitamins are stored in your liver until they are needed and some minerals are stored in your bones and liver. High doses of vitamins and minerals may accumulate very quickly. Depending upon the treatment method used to cure a multiple vitamin overdose, you may spend a few hours to a few days in the hospital.
Considerations
Avoid taking more than one multivitamin, unless your doctor specifically instructs you to do so. Do not take additional vitamin or mineral supplements while taking a multivitamin unless you are under doctor supervision. Certain drugs such as diuretics, heart and blood pressure medications and certain antibiotics can interact with multivitamins.
