Iron Toxicity! Please Help!

[Cara1896]

i, I recently started taking high dose iron tablets, 65mg, bought them off amazon. I’m a vegetarian so I’ve been taking iron tablets for years but never that strength. I have taken the 65mg ones for 3 weeks everyday and recently have had stomach pains and really bad dihorea. I feel like an idiot, I didn’t realise you could get iron poisoning. I’m not even sure in have low iron, never been to the doctor about it.

I have stopped taking them but have read t can lead to death or brain and liver damage or cancer! I am so scared, I have a son and partner and don’t want to leave them, I’m so stupid! The stomach pains have stopped and not so much dihorea but read the iron can build up. Terrified I’m going to have a seizure or something.

[Paxiled]

Don't worry, you're confusing lead in things like paint and other environmental pollutants, with the supplement.  Constipation and other digestive problem are very common with taking supplemental iron.  Taking too much for a long period of time is also associated with increased risk of heart disease, especially in men.  As for your underlying concern, being a vegetarian should make it easier for you to get iron, not harder.  You're thinking most likely of organ meats such as beef liver, but how many people really eat that anyway?  The most assimilable form of iron is found in green leafy veggies.  If you look at the ingredients in the best absorbed iron supplement, Floradix, you will see all plants that contain iron.  The list is quite long.  Dandelion greens, watercress, parsley, nettles, sea vegetables and beets (especially with the tops) are just a few of the sources of iron you have available to you.  The two nutrients vegetarians can have a problem obtaining are methionine, an amino acid not found in plant protein other than perhaps fresh water algae such as spirulina, and you can't really consume a whole lot of that at a time.  So getting complete protein is important.  The other is B12, which is also quite high in spirulina but quite sparse in a vegetarian diet.  This is one of the reasons most people who claim to be vegetarians consume dairy, definitely not a plant, and fish.  It's for the things that are hard to get.  But iron isn't one of them.  Unless you get a physical and it comes out that you're short iron, you probably aren't.  Some people do have a problem with it, and that can cause anemia (spirulina helps with that as well, because of its high chlorophyll content -- chlorophyll has almost the same make-up as hemoglobin and helps to build robust blood cells).  Here's the thing -- if you're going to be a vegan or vegetarian, you have to learn to eat in a way those who eat a balanced diet of moderate animal and plant don't have to worry about.  There are a million books about how to do it correctly.  If you're feeding your child vegetarian, it becomes even more important to learn how to do it right.  All the best.