Need help with vitamin supplement ? please

[alagirl]

During my tx I didn't take any vitamins or supplements because I worried about causing liver damage with anything additional, especially since there was so much medication I already needed to take, and I especially worried about adding iron or taking anything that would help iron absorb due to all of the transfusions I was taking.

On Tuesday when I saw my pain doctor, he noted that my blood pressue is very low nowadays and he took me off my bp medicine since I am taking prn inderol and he asked me to just take the inderol daily and gave me prn lasix (sp?)

He also has me on a strong dose of prn demerol for my migraines which he swore me to secrecy about (just me, him, the pharmacy, the dea, and you all), and due to the low bp and due to the pain med with the low bp (I actually take the pain med 12 hours apart when I have a migraine and I take my adderall with it to lessen the chance that I'll end up like Heath Ledger, although that probably isn't as helpful for pain control as it would be without the adderall, but it still seems to work ok due to the dose of pain medication being so strong) - anyway, due to all of this he wants me to take a multivitamin (although he said I can take one without iron since obviously we don't want anymore of THAT in my system).  He just feels that without the supplement I could get too low on some vitamin or mineral level and then the pain medication could trigger cardiac instability with my bp trending low like it tends to do - and certainly this HAS happened to me before WITHOUT the pain meds when I've gotten too low on my potassium due to the diuretic in the bp med I was taking so I know what he's talking about with the cardiac issues - it's a real issue certainly, although I've had huge amounts of pain meds following surgeries before when my bp was just as low as it is now without any problems - when I'm so sedentary, such as I have been lately, and following surgeries, my bp easily goes down to 85 over 50 and its just not abnormal for me.  I also don't breathe as often as most people in general.  I noticed this really early on, that I only take a few breaths per minute compared with other people.  They breathe two or three times for every breath that I take.  Strangely though, I have had almost constant tachycardia for the past twenty years or so.  Possibly connected to my chronic anemia on the rapid heartbeat - that would make sense.

Does anyone see an issue with me taking the vitamin/supplement now that I'm finished with treatment and my liver enzymes have normalized?  He didn't think there would be a problem with it at all.  Of course, he also has a big stake in me not kicking the bucket as a result of meds he prescribed.  And don't get me wrong - he's a great guy.  Concerned, and spends thirty minutes or more at each appointment really asking about every part of my health.  Not to mention that he cares enough to actually manage my migraine pain and help me with the hep c related ra pain (the migraine pain being the worst of it though - if I had to, I could live with the ra pain, but I would shoot myself if I couldn't get help with my migraines), and pain control is something which a lot of physicians either don't agree with or are afraid to do for people nowadays.

[alagirl]

The low BP is probably directly related to the opiates you take
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it's a genetic thing.  my mom is the same way.  my bp was always about 95 over 55 or 60 all my life.  Frequently with both of us people have had to take and retake our bp's just to get them to register.  One time someone asked her if she was sure she was alive because they couldn't get her bp.  It wasn't so bad years ago when they took our bp's manually.  But the electronic bp machines frequently have difficulty registering low bp's and they have to repeat them over and over.

Then about seven years ago for some reason my bp started getting high - the paternal side of my family has high bp and I think this must be why mine started to get high, because my mother's is still very very low, for me it was the bottom number that was trending high, so they put me on bp medicine.  But whenever I'm in the hospital, or sitting for a long time, or sedentary like I have been this past year, it reverts back.  But if I'm up and around, it will shoot up again.  So its pretty unstable and it moves around based on my activity level.  

I'm going to get a multi-vitamin w/o iron and start taking it.  It took such a long time for my liver enzymes to come down because of the huge amount of iron in my system that I just worry about it a lot.  I have been on a lot of prescription medication since I was a teenager since I had migraines early and I started taking a variety of prophylactic medication early in an effort to try to lessen the frequency and severity of those, plus phenergan and pain medication on top of that - and lots of excedrin, which I don't touch anymore - I won't ever use acetimenophin again (sp?) and my liver enzymes barely registered all the way up until I got hepatitis c last year, and then right after I began treating they went to normal, and then shot up again as I started the transfusions, so I've just been so concerned about any nutrient that might help the additional iron absorb better and I don't know enough about the subject (aside from vitamin c helping iron absorb) to have a good idea about it.  I'm hopeful that having a unit of blood out has already gotten a good bit of iron out though.  Last time I did phlebotomy a few years ago it worked pretty quickly.  Additionally though, I had iron accumulated in my liver per the biopsy they'd done a few years ago and I don't know enough about the subject to know if the phlebotomy they did that removed the iron from my blood also removed it from my liver, so I just have a lot of qualms about end organ damage due to depositing additional iron.

but I think you're right and it will be ok to get the vitamin and take it.  I'm going to do it anyway.  It can't hurt anymore than its hurt me to go back to my regular diet, which is mostly stir fry vegetables (which I couldn't eat on tx because it made me nauseous, plus I was too tired to cook)

[Trinity4]

I've read many of your posts and you are certainly more unique than most.  You do take alot of medication which I'm sure you would rather not but I appears you have to in order to manage the pain.  I've never been in that situation and hopefully will never have to be.  
The low BP is probably directly related to the opiates you take but given the amount of meds you are on already,  I just can't see a vitamin causing anymore problems than your existing meds.  I think you would only benefit from it.  Hope someday your pain becomes manageable and you won't have to rely on opiates for relief.  Good Luck
Trin

[Rockerforlife]

you need a multvitamin wito no iron or vit A...thats it...simple...i got  link to the site here somewhere