Wisdom from the vets

Do you suggest stopping your vitamins prior to a yearly blood work? If so- how long should I stop taking them prior to the labs being drawn? Should I stop all or just particular ones? Thank-you already for your feedback

Why would you want to do that?

I did not know if it would give a false reading if I was really low on something like vitamin B. The liquid gets right into your system and would show great numbers but maybe at the end of that week it would show low. I don't know? Just obsessing again, I guess!

The point of the vitamins is to ensure you levels are stable/normal. You really don't want to know if they are low- cause by the time you see it in blood work- you're probably already living with side effects.

That makes sense. It is to make sure my vitamin supplementation is working. Right?

Iron levels will be falsely high if you take a supplement in the 4 days prior.

I've never been advised to stop vitamins prior to having them checked. Some programs are different, so it might be worth a call to whoever is supervising your yearly checks.

Jen

Same here-- never been told to not take them. But it is logical that they may inflate your values.

I think Julie said that iron can cause a false "better than it really is" reading. I just had mine done a few months ago and it was fasting, so I didn't take any that morning, but that was all.

Jen

Most doctors have told me not to take them for at lest a couple of days prior to labs being drawn. A couple said it should be 3 or 4 days. With some vits it won't matter, but others, like iron, it can give false readings for a few days.

Vitamins get stored for various lengths of time. Some have reserves of a few months, others a few days. So if we miss a day or 2, it's no big deal. But taking something like B12 a few hours before labs can really spike them.