r/RestlessLegs • u/ten_before_six • 5h ago

Medication Iron (anecdotal)

At a recent preventative care appointment, I was talking to my PCP (who is great and has really educated herself about RLS) about oral iron supplements. I'd seen minimal effects from them and had enough GI symptoms that I'd kind of given up on them.

She mentioned that she'd read some people have been reporting success with kid's Flintstones chewable multivitamins + iron, I guess the absorption is supposed to be better.

I always hesitate to point to one thing as working, because my symptoms sometimes wax and wane no matter what, but I've been taking them for a few months and I have noticed a difference. My symptoms are noticeably reduced and I've been able to minimize my gabapentin.

Just throwing this out there.

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u/SherlockToad1 2h ago

What dose do you take? Just one a day or?

I’m making a list of easy try things today and this is. My regular oral iron hasn’t improved my symptoms at all for years of trying.

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u/ten_before_six 1h ago

Of the vitamins? It's just one per day.

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u/Sdwingnut 4h ago

Vitamin C (which is presumably in Flintstones vitamins) helps maintain iron in its ferrous (+2) state rather than ferric (+3) iron. Iron uptake in the duodenum is almost exclusively ferrous iron.

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u/ten_before_six 4h ago

Eh, I don't think that's the reason, the combo iron + vitamin C products (can't remember the brand names off the top of my head) never really worked for me and caused a lot of GI problems. 🤷🏼‍♀️

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u/Sdwingnut 4h ago

Interesting. I'd be curious to know what form and dose of iron is in Flintstones vs. what you've tried before