Just read an article saying over sixties should take a good quality multivitamin - but they didn't say which one. It's just as a preventative measure. Because you don't eat as many calories as when you were younger. My thyroid is fine and the blood test they do at the Doctors I don't think is tested for all the vitamins and nutrients - although I might be wrong.
Reason for saying “desperate†is because of my post menopausal symptoms...palpitations, flushes, nightsweats, aching bones?!?!
OK, well I'm a member of a thyroid forum because I'm hypothyroid and not yet adequately treated so I'm hot on all that's needed to make the body accept the thyroid hormone and use it properly. Vitamins are vital for this, but multi-vitamins are eschewed because they are never very good. They use the cheapest supplement available, often not what the older body can deal successfully with, and they mix minerals like iron into them. If you take iron you should take it 4 hours away from other vitamins and from some meds or it will bind up the vitamins and stop them working. Things like that mean we don't recommend multivitamins. Instead we recommend people have their vitamin D and B12 tested and if necessary, treat accordingly with a specific targeted vitamin. And the same goes for iron, a full panel should be drawn and treated if levels are low, but not if they are good as too much iron is as bad as too little. Magnesium is another mineral that needs testing and you can get a multi mineral blood test.
As with most things, take what the GP says with a pinch of salt, get your own tests if they won't do them for you and then research what the levels really mean. A GP will tell someone their B12 is "fine" if it's just scraped into the bottom of the enormous reference range. But in fact they should be aiming to have their level towards the top of the range and yet the GP will dismiss it. Vitamin D is another. A result just inside the reference range will be declared "fine" but the Vitamin D council recommends at least 100.
It's rarely as easy as taking a single multivitamin.
