---
title: Vitamins & Supplements
date: 2025-05-18
lastmod: 
published: true
tags: 
    - health
---

After several years of experimenting, I've found a regimen of vitamins and other supplements that have helped me manage some of my chronic health problems. Here's what I take and why I take it:

## Allergies

- **Cetirizine (10 mg, QD)**: I take this daily and it works like a charm. I used to take Fexofenadine (which seemed to have a stronger antihistamine effect), but if I missed a dose, I would get insomnia. Walmart sells a bottle with ~300 tablets, and that's the best deal I've found.
- **Raw honey**: I don't have this nearly as often as I would like, but my dad cured his hay fever by having raw honey every day.


## Digestive Health

- **Probiotic (1 cap, QD)**: I take a daily probiotic, and it helps a lot with lactose intolerance. I get the CVS Health Ultimate Digestive Probiotic with 80B CFU, but I have not really experimented with any others.
- **Lactase Enzyme (1 cap, PRN)**: I take these every time I have dairy. Between these and my daily probiotic, it's like a subscription to the ability to lactose tolerance. The ones from Amazon seem to work better than the CVS brand or Lactaid (plus, the latter two taste disgusting).
- **Omeprazole (20 mg, QD)**: daily for erosive esophagitis/acid reflux. They sell these in bottles of 14, which is bogus.
- **Turmeric (1000 mg, QD)**: I am not sure if this helps or not, but I've seen sources online say that turmeric can be good for fighting fatty liver disease.
- **Fish Oil (1000 mg, QD)**: Like turmeric, I've seen things say that fish oil helps fight fatty liver disease.
- **IB Gard (1 cap, QD)**: I don't take these anymore. I feel like they did help a little, but you have to be very careful with them. If you don't have a sufficiently large meal after taking an IB Gard, the peppermint on your empty stomach will make you have cramps for a couple days.

In addition to these supplements, diet and exercise have made a huge impact for me. I think that my IBS was largely a symptom of fatty liver disease, so reducing fatty/high-carb foods and doing daily aerobic exercise has essentially cured me.


## Headaches

- **Magnesium (250 mg, QD)**: recommended by my primary doctor. When I do have headaches these days, it's typically because I forgot to take my magnesium the day before.
- **CoQ10 (100 mg, QD)**: recommended by my primary doctor. Beware, they're kind of expensive (unless you get the 5-finger discount)

I've noticed that if I have a headache, it's most likely because I've been sleep deprived most nights. There's no substitute for getting adequate sleep, but Mg + CoQ10 are a good second.


## Immune Support

- **Zinc (50 mg, QD)**: since I started taking zinc and drinking my immune support tea, I have been less susceptible to contracting illnesses. There have been times that Codi gets sick but I don't.
- **Twinings Immune Support+ Blackberry Hibiscus and Elderberry Tea (PRN)**: this stuff is legit, and it tastes really good.


## Misc

- **Vitamin D₃ (1000 IU, QD)**: I started taking this on a recommendation from my therapist when I was depressed. I always say that it made my mood about 2.5% better, which doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're at rock bottom, it's pretty good for such an easy intervention. Things didn't start getting better until after I started taking Vitamin D regularly. I call them "little drops of sunshine."
- **Vitamin B Complex (1 tab, QD)**: I take these so I don't have to get separate pills for the B vitamins I really need: 
  - **Niacin (B3)**: the skin on my fingers used to peel because I was B3 deficient.
  - **Pyridoxine (B6)**: since I started taking this, I don't really have nightmares anymore.