DISCLAIMER: The content of this article does not constitute medical advice. Before adding any nutritional vitamins or supplements, consult with an appropriate professional.

Vitamins and supplements are a multi-million dollar industry, and it seems like most people use at least basic supplements. I’d like to illuminate how the RIGHT vitamins and supplements can support your journey back to health, as well as how to figure out which ones are right for YOU.

You’re likely aware that taking vitamins and supplements can be helpful, but you may not know all that much about them or how they work. Biochemistry was the class my science-friends all feared in school!

But when you’re dealing with a health condition, biochemistry is your friend.

What if one of the obstacles in the way of your body getting well is simply the lack of enough of a certain nutrient? Wouldn’t you want to correct that ASAP?

Why You Need Vitamins and Supplements

Your body needs various raw materials to do its jobs. Imagine trying to run your car without gasoline, or transmission fluid. You won’t get very far without these essential components!

Your body is continuously performing chemical reactions, and it uses vitamins, minerals, and enzymes to make them happen.

For example, your liver requires many different vitamins and mineral co-factors to successfully detoxify your blood, including vitamins A, C, E, certain B vitamins, vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, amino acids such as glycine, glutamine, taurine, and cysteine, sulfur, and glutathione (the master antioxidant).

Generally, your body does a pretty good job of automatically maintaining function. If you’re in good health and you eat a nutrient-dense diet, you are probably able to get most of the vitamins, minerals, and enzymes you need from your food.

But once you begin to present with symptoms, your body is telling you its needs aren’t being met. By the time you have a diagnosis, organs, tissues, or functions may be damaged, and need support.

A major part of the process of restoring health is bringing these deficiencies to sufficiency, so that your body can take care of itself with ease. This is Step 4 on my Roadmap to Recovery (If you haven’t gotten your copy yet you can download it here).

Deficiencies are common, and can be created by:

A damaged digestive system, from infections, medication side effects, food sensitivities, or radiation exposure, which can compromise your ability to absorb nutrients.
A diet full of nutrient-poor or processed food.
Genetics, which may compromise your ability to create or absorb enough of a nutrient.
Inflammation, which can use up stores of important nutrients to repair the damage.
Certain disease processes. For example, the heavy bleeding common with fibroids or endometriosis can lead to iron deficiency.
Missing co-factors for absorption. For example, adequate stomach acid is necessary to absorb Vitamin B12 and iron.

While you are investigating your health challenges and seeking answers, it’s important to get clear on where your deficiencies are likely to be, and to work to bring them to sufficiency.

How to Determine Nutrient Deficiencies

Many modern people are deficient in several common nutrients, especially if they are eating a standard American diet. These include Magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids and short-chain fatty acids, B vitamins, and antioxidants, like vitamin A, E, and C. Vitamin D deficiency is also very common, which can be an underlying cause of immune challenge if you are struggling with your health.

Figuring out which basic vitamins and supplements you need to support your body in regaining sufficiency and recovering is quite simple. A standard blood chemistry test (Complete Blood Count and Metabolic Panel) as well as some symptom clues can give you good direction. You can also monitor particular nutrients via direct testing, as with Vitamin 25-OH D.

Functional Medicine and Functional Nutrition practitioners read these tests within a narrower range than your standard MD might. I am looking for optimal function, as opposed to a severe disease state.

For example, on the CBC, there are several markers that note the condition of the red blood cells, and are used to monitor anemia. Values of these markers can indicate not only problems with iron and anemia, but also your status of Vitamin B6 and B12, Vitamin C, and stomach acid.

Markers on your metabolic panel can also give us good indicators about B vitamins, zinc status, micronutrients like molybdenum, as well as your digestive status, helping you understand whether you need additional support in that area.

Beyond blood chemistry testing, there are other functional tests available that can help illuminate what’s going on. Organic Acids testing can show your status of vitamins, antioxidants like CoQ10 and glutathione, and neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.

But though these fancy tests can be useful, there is no substitute for looking at the basics, and supporting the body in performing its normal function. Sometimes, with some minor dietary changes and the addition of supportive nutrients, people experience a really dramatic shift for the better.

A recent client came to me with frequent stomachaches, pain, fatigue, and stress. As part of my assessment, it appeared that vitamin B12 and B6, magnesium, and omega-3s were likely deficient. Their digestive function appeared to need support, as well.

They carefully included these basic vitamin and supplement supports to their routine, and within a few weeks had significant relief from their stomachaches and fatigue. They were feeling better, so they stopped the supports, only to find the symptoms returned.

Sometimes, small changes provide that little nudge of support that can make the difference between symptoms and no symptoms.

Start Vitamins and Supplements One At A Time

Equally important to including vitamins and supplements to plug nutrient leaks and bring deficiency to sufficiency is working to carefully observe whether or not they are helping or hurting and to adjust accordingly.

You may have decided you needed certain vitamins or supplements, or been told you should use certain types by your health provider. Many people in this situation buy a big order of supplements, and just start taking them all at once.

I don’t do this in my practice, and you shouldn’t either. It’s best to start vitamins and supplements one at a time. This is especially true if you are already someone who has a lot of food sensitivities.

The reason is two fold. You want to be able to carefully work up to the right dose for your body, AND be aware of any adverse reactions. If you take five new supplements on the same day and then develop a headache or nausea, you won’t know which vitamin or supplement is responsible.

I have tried a lot of supplements over these last several years, and there are many I have found that I couldn’t tolerate. I wait to incorporate something new until I know my body isn’t reacting to anything, and then test it. If I consistently experience a negative symptom, I stop for a few days, and then try it one more time.

Not only does this help you understand which supplements are best left out of your routine, it gives you more information about your case. Is there an additive in the supplement or vitamin you react to? Is the form of the supplement difficult for your body to absorb? Is it the dose the problem? Answering these questions helps you learn more about your body’s unique biochemistry and the best way to support it.

For example, I had a doctor prescribe me a high-potency Vitamin B12 supplement with SAMe (an enzyme). I was concerned about the high dose of B12 because I had experienced anxiety from too high of a dose of B12, and voiced my concern. But the doctor said she thought the reason I had had trouble before with B12 was because I wasn’t taking it with SAMe.

When I started the supplement, I didn’t experience anxiety, but I started having really pressing headaches, like I had a heavy bowling ball sitting on my brain between my eyes. I tried reducing the dose to a half capsule, but that didn’t work either. So I stopped using it, and the headaches went away.

Maybe for MOST of this doctor’s patients, they did fine with a high B12 dose with SAMe, but for me, it didn’t work. We need to listen to our bodies.

More Isn’t Always Better

More isn’t always better! Because every body is unique and different, dosage is bioindividual. A recommended dosage on a bottle of vitamins or supplements is a generalization. I recommend clients start at a small, low dose, and gradually increase, if they don’t experience any symptoms or side effects. This not only helps you see those side effects more clearly, but also helps you find YOUR body’s best therapeutic dose.

Using these two guiding principles will help you make the most beneficial use of your vitamins and supplements.

Why Vitamin and Supplement Quality Matters

Many people want to cut costs and buy cheap vitamins and supplements from suppliers like WalMart and Costco. While this is understandable, using quality, medical-grade supplements is a much better idea to support the best outcome.

Many inexpensive brands of supplements are cheap because they are mostly fillers, or in some documented cases, are actually not what is advertised.

Fillers can often be a problem for people dealing with challenging health issues, if they are unlabeled allergens. Many of the clients who come through my office are sensitive to gluten, dairy, eggs, and other common allergens. But many low-end supplements have ingredients with these sources. Despite the needed nutrients, these ingredients may set clients back.

I always source gluten-, dairy-, soy-, nut-, egg, shellfish-free supplements for my clients, and even choose specific supplements for them depending on their known or suspected sensitivities. For example, I’m sensitive to corn, so I can’t use any supplements that have corn sourced ingredients. This may include things like dextrose, a common additive in many supplements.

Though they may be more expensive, choosing supplements free of ingredients that may harm your forward progress on your road to recovery, or that truly contain what you are hoping to buy, is worth the investment.

Reputable vitamin and supplement companies often provide 3^rd-party verification of stated ingredients, as well as certification that their products are free from allergens, such as gluten, dairy, soy, and so on.

Here is a partial list of supplement suppliers that provide high-quality, therapeutic grade supplements include:

Conclusion

Supporting your body with the right nutrients to restore function is an important part of walking your road to recovery. Provided you correctly identify the vitamins and supplements your body needs help with and you use them properly, they can be an essential support during your healing process.

Supplementation is only ONE part of a multi-faceted approach I use to support my clients in getting well. If you are ready to learn more about what nutrients your body may need in the context of YOUR Road to Recovery, I invite you to download your copy of Road to Recovery: How to Move Beyond Your Symptoms and Create a Personalized Plan to Restore Your Health HERE. I look forward to connecting with you.

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How to Use Vitamins and Supplements to Support Your Road to Recovery