Vitamins, and minerals, and supplements, oh my

Vitamins are are not a huge part of my life. I don't go out and buy the latest supplement, and I believe that no one should take any dietary supplement except by doctor's orders based on blood tests. Otherwise, you start taking multiple vitamins and mixing things and without a biochemistry degree have no idea how one pill affects another.

But a couple of years ago my doctor did a full blood panel and ordered me to start taking a daily multivitamin with at least 1600 units of D a day. And I did. Until a few months ago, when I removed soy from my diet.

It is almost impossible to find a vitamin, supplement, or other pill without soy. See:

Those are my husband's multivitamins, fish oils, and trace nutrient supplement (he does not wait for doctor's orders, and I am waiting for him to turn purple as a result of mixing unknown levels of additives with wild abandon).

A little backstory: back before my doctor identified my severe vitamin D deficiency, I had terrible migraines. Like, lay in a silent dark room and try not to puke migraines. Once I started taking my vitamin D, the migraines went away. Almost instantly.

So when I stopped taking them due to the soy content, my headaches came back after about a month. And I found myself on a desperate search for a D supplement that was soy free. And I found one, in the form of a gummy multivitamin at my friendly wholesale store. Here's the label:

It has 800 units of D, so I take two servings. Maybe overkill, but until I find a D-only supplement that is soy free, that's my regimen. Here's the soy-free statement:

No wheat, gluten, milk, eggs, peanuts, or soy. So I guess it's Celiac-and Vegan-friendly. Very cool.

And I was always a little dubious about gummy vitamins, but since my headaches are at bay, I'm guessing they're doing just fine. So I've got that going for me.

And I'm still pain-free. So take that, endometriosis. And nutritional deficiencies.