Is it okay to take prescription pills and vitamins all together at the same time?

You’d have to ask your doctor. Doctor knows best. Not us jellies…

For the most part, it’s OK. I say this because my workplace uses an EMR electronic medical record that includes a med list for each patient, prescription drugs as well as OTCs. The only caution that typically comes up is when someone is on thyroid replacement – they can’t take calcium at the same time because it will interfere with the absorption of the thyroid med.

This is really a question for your pharmacist. That being said it would be pretty hard on the lining of your stomach to take all that at once.

I should add that I do prescribe SSRIs, so my advice should hold true for that. I do not prescribe ulcer meds, although some of my patients are on ulcer meds, so those two are OK together SSRI and ulcer med. But it’s possible there’s some interaction between the vitamins and the ulcer meds that I’m not aware of.

All properly prescribed and delivered prescription drugs come with an insert which in tiny print, usuallly, will tell you exactly what the interactions. If not you should googlebing it .

I’m a nurse-we give that combination together. calcium needs to be taken apart from a variety of meds. some ulcer medications reduce how much drug or vitamin is absorbed by your stomach. your pharmicist will tell you.

I do & have for many, many years.

I never knew this about thyroid and calcium….wondered why some days seem to work better than others many thanks!

Always tell you doctor what supplements and over the counter medications you are taking. She will be able to help you when all the information is disclosed.

Of course. Vitamins are just vitamins. Would you stop drinking milk because it has vitamin D in it? :P

Always tell your doctor of all medications you take, as said.

I do not recall that there should be interactions there, which does not mean that there aren’t (I am terribly rusty), but it caught my attention that you take both a multivitamin pill *and’ C and D separately. Is there no C or D in your multivitamin pill? There is no particular advantage in taking extreme doses, and the long-term effects of such are unknown.

Vitamin C does not even store in your body. You would probably be better off leaving the pill out and just drinking a glass of orange juice daily.

@Janka vitamin D deficiency has gotten a lot of publicity recently, probably appropriately. We’ve known for a long time that it’s important for metabolizing and using calcium but newer research suggests it’s important for other health issues as well, like autoimmune diseases and cancer. These days, a lot of my patients are requesting screening and a surprising number of them are lower than they should be. It is possible to overdose on D, but taking up to 1,000 units a day is certainly OK. Prescription doses are given when someone is seriously low on blood tests, and it’s 50,000 units of D3 once a week for 6–8 weeks.

@MagsRags Thanks for posting the calcium/thyroid answer. I didn’t know that and I’m on thyroid meds along with taking calcium. I was at the pharmacy today picking up meds for my mom and asked the pharmacist. She concurred and also added that you should not take an antibiotic with calcium, which my mom is currently doing.

You’re welcome. I’ve had patients who were not responding to their thyroid medication because of the calcium.

@MagsRags Thanks for the info!
@Janka Most people don’t get enough vitamin D, and there’s not enough in my multivitamin, so I make sure I get 1000 units a day with the vitamin D supplement

@MagsRags Sorry if I was unclear; I did not mean to object to taking vitamins as such, I was merely wondering about the simultaneous use of a multivitamin and separate C & D. I did not mean to alarm anyone about possible overdosing—it is simply that if you already got what you need from one pill, taking another costs money that could probably be used better.

Medications of actual deficiencies is naturally a different issue where doses that would be “extreme” for a normal person are quite useful.

@Janka I hear you about the dangers of megadosing on vitamins and minerals.

Benefits aside, water soluble vitamins tend to be safe even at high doses, because the escess is just excreted in the urine. Fat soluble vitamins can be dangerous at high doses, because the body tries to store the excess. The classic example is vitamin A, which is stored in the liver

The official RDA for vitamin D is 200 units, but that is probably too low for many of us. The Institute of Medicine has defined the “tolerable upper intake level” for vitamin D as 2000 units a day for healthy adults. But the latest research has experts thinking that a bit more is probably a good thing for most.