Vitamins and me

A few years ago, a friend of mine started taking St. John’s Wort to improve her mood.

It was actually working until she stumbled upon an article on the internet that said ST. JOHN’S WORT AFFECTS BIRTH CONTROL.

She freaked out.

THEY DON’T SAY THAT ON THE BOTTLE!!!! She screamed. BASTARDS!! (Uh, no pun intended).

She stopped taking them immediately and proceeded to walk around a nervous wreck until the...uh...end of the month.

And although she was (and still is) without child, THAT certainly didn't improve her mood.

St. John’s Wort fail.

...and that’s why I don’t take vitamins.

Ha. Just kidding mom. It was my FRIEND.

But no, I don’t take vitamins either. I never did.

Even the Flinstones vitamins that everyone loved as a kid I would hide under my plate at breakfast and my mom would yell at me when she cleared the table and saw them.

“You’re going to get osteoperosis,” she would say, and conjure up images of hunched over old ladies. “Is that what you want to look like?”

If the colorful cartoon vitamins didn’t entice me, the vomit-yellow drab looking multi-vitamins I was given in high school certainly didn’t win me over.

Those I also hid under my breakfast plate, only my mom would leave them there and they’d accompany my DINNER plate that evening, all sticky with humidity.

“It’s huge! It’s a HORSE PILL!” I wailed. “I can't swallow it!”

“Take it with bread,” my mom said.

I never did. Perhaps it was because vitamins were (no pun intended) shoved down my throat, I took a stand. I would never, ever take vitamins.

The times in high school that I did take vitamins at my mother’s insistence, I did so very dramatically and made a big display about how the vitamin was choking me on the way down my gullet.

In college, my mom sent me to the dorm with a pill bottle of “women’s” vitamins and they stayed on my shelf the whole year with the cotton still it in and everything.

But, now that I'm all grown up, I've decided that maybe vitamins could be helpful. And not just to improve my mood. Ha.

My first attempt at taking vitamins was a daily multi-vitamin that caught my eye by promising to help with my “metabolism” which I interpreted as “make you skinnier.”

I bought them and made a point to take them every day. I soon figured out their “skinny” secret: they made me want to throw up.

No, I don’t think that’s what Centrum meant by “metabolism,” but every morning that I took them (WHILE EATING A BREAKFAST BAR, YES, MOM, I TOOK THEM WITH FOOD), exactly seven minutes later, in the car on my way to work, I was overcome with nausea and my tongue got all swollen and thick and it was hard to swallow.

Have you ever felt this way? Spit refusing to go down??? Is this what throwing up is like?

(I wouldn’t know...you may remember, I’ve only thrown up three times in my life.)

God, it was the worst. Like clockwork, I’d get nauseous on the interstate. Once, I almost pulled to the side of the road to puke. THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT! THIS WAS THE VITAMINS' FAULT!

After four days of hell, I stopped taking them and haven’t felt that type of nausea since.

(I made sure to tell my mom that.)

Now, a year later, I’m trying something different.

I’m trying specific vitamins rather than a STUPID multi.

Because I’m not getting any younger people!!! And...I don’t want to be a hunched over old lady.

I have more confidence in the non-multis because I do remember taking garlic pills for a few weeks in college...I can’t remember why....wait, just Googled it....the “metabolism” promise again...bastards.

And they didn't make me nauseous!!! It was a miracle!!

But, alas, you CAN'T hide that body odor.

GARLICKY B-O.

P-U.

I’d rather have osteoporosis.

Yesterday, I brought my new diet book ("The six-pack abs diet" what what!!!) to the grocery store and read their vitamin recommendations. I was persuaded into buying Folic Acid and Beta Carotene vitamins.

Folic Acid because it helps block cancer (supposedly) and prevents Alzheimer’s (supposedly), and Beta Carotene because it gives you shiny hair and nails and teeth like a rabbit (definitely).

I took them both yesterday for the first time after dinner and I wasn’t nauseous at all.

ANOTHER MIRACLE!!

The best part? They don’t affect birth control.

(Whew.)

Ha.

-Jenny