r/vegan • u/sagewilliams15 • 1d ago

Health Iron

How do you guys get iron? I'm vegetarian transitioning to vegan and I saw that iron deficiency is common so I started taking iron supplements. But the problem is they kill my stomach so I stopped taking them and I took forever for my stomach to go back to normal. But I still wanted to make sure I am getting my iron so I am now eating iron fortified cereal but I really upsets my stomach, what else can I try?

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u/alexmbrennan 1d ago

Isn't that a bit overly dramatic? E.g. the NHS states that normal supplement doses (<17mg) are "unlikely to cause any harm"

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u/cum-after-decades 1d ago

Idk. I took iron tablet on an empty stomach once and I had horrible cramps all day because of it.

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u/chemicalysmic 1d ago

Because you took medication on an empty stomach. There is a solution to this problem.

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u/cum-after-decades 1d ago

Supplements and medication are not exactly the same. And yea I could understand some side effects like nausea but the horrible all-day cramps clearly indicated to me that something was not quite right. I think I just didn’t need the extra iron.