Personalized Vitamins

[MomWithOCDSon]

Hoping someone here can help me with vetting this company? Sending DS off this summer for three weeks . . . and then hopefully college in a year . . . and staring down the barrel of how do we handle all these supplements? What teenager/college kid is going to take a dozen pills each day without being reminded?

 

So I thought I'd see if I could find a place that would make a custom "multi-vitamin" for us that would contain only those substances we KNOW work well for DS, without any of the extras found in standard multi-vitamins.

 

Found this company and did a little trial "build" of our custom supplement . . . almost seems too good to be true. Apparently, we can get the appropriate amounts of NAC, D3, quercitin, B6, zinc, etc. in a single capsule with a 90-day supply costing approximately $1.37/day! I KNOW that's cheaper than what we're currently spending, and it would reduce the pill intake 10-fold! The only additional items he will need will be fish oil which, I suppose for obvious reasons, can't be compounded here.

 

http://www.vitaganic.com/;jsessionid=A65FAC55874682151477999C5522791A

 

Thanks!

[MomWithOCDSon]

Well, Part 2. I've been researching this company to see what I can find out while I await anyone else's experience.

 

There was an FDA letter issued to them back in February 2012 questioning their quality controls; apparently the company responded but did not, to the FDA's satisfaction, anyway, respond with sufficient documentation. I cannot find anything issued more recently than that date, so it sort of begs the question what's happened since then? I'm a little cynical about the FDA to begin with . . . feel as though they're frequently mostly looking out for Big Pharma, rather than us little people, but I don't want to be foolish and impulsive, either. Plus, the trouble that companies such as 23andme have had with the FDA just support my self-serving view.

 

The company web site is very well put together and organized, and they offer pages and pages of testimonials; however, those are mostly "blind," without any way to contact the posters to verify.

 

I sent an email to the company's Information email address, telling them that the FDA letter is prominent when researching them, so a full disclosure and information relative thereto is sought by me, and probably by other potential clients, as well. We'll see if they respond, and what they'll offer when they do.

 

I SO want to believe that a product such as this is available and reliable! There's a sucker born every minute, or so they say. ;-)

[Rachel]

Keep us updated. I'm not sending one off to college but it would be nice to cut down on some supplements. I would like to create a mutivitamin without the B's. I will look at this site over a little more.

[MomWithOCDSon]

They did respond to my query regarding the FDA letter, which I guess is a good sign. And it was well-written, for which I give them some additional credit. However, not unlike what the FDA charges, there was nothing specific in the response that makes me feel convinced they're not potentially going to sell me a supplement that's supposed to contain everything I want, but not actually fulfill the order correctly/fully in terms of volume of supplements and/or the individual components. If I had access to a lab at a reasonable price, I suppose I could order it and then have it analyzed, but that's not really an option for me.

 

Here's the response:

 

Thank you for your email. We understand your concern regarding the FDA letter. Since then, we have made the corrective actions and improved our production and testing procedures. As this letter was issued in 2012, we have not received any further letters regarding this issue. With the FDA, no news is always good news. We continue to test all in-coming material and out-going finished products to ensure quality. Since 2012, we have also made changes to our in-house lab, quality control, and we've brought on board a variety of qualified employees to make changes and improvements.

 

Regarding the testimonials on our website, they are essentially blind since we are not authorized to release any customer's private contact information, so I understand what you mean. You may, however, feel free to contact any of our suppliers from the following link: http://www.vitaganic.com/aboutus/our_raw_materials.jsp. We source from US suppliers only and any material that fails to meet specifications are rejected by us immediately.

 

We do appreciate your email and we hope this helps to ease your concern. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

 

Regards,

Tiffany

 

So, now I'm contemplating maybe placing an order and seeing how DS does taking the supplement?

[MomWithOCDSon]

Well, I just placed our order. I have a friend who dropped me a line, said she's been using Vitagenics for about 6 months now, and so far, so good. So I decided it was worth a try. Want to get them and start using them early enough so that we know definitively they're as effective as we need them to be before DS leaves for the summer.

 

Crossed fingers!

[philamom]

Good luck with the vitamin. Hope he has a great getaway this summer!

[MomWithOCDSon]

Update . . . received our order yesterday afternoon, so started DS on this "super-combo" supplement last night. Too early to judge efficacy experientially, but was a little bit dismayed by one revelation: "Serving size 9 capsules daily," says the information on the bottle.

 

So much for cutting back on the sheer number of capsules DS is required to take daily, particularly given as, in order to get a combination of all the supplements in the doses he currently takes daily, I purposefully had to split the quantities in half, with the internally-adopted understanding that he would be taking the supplement twice daily, rather than just once.

 

So, that's 18 capsules a day, 9 in the morning and 9 at night.

 

On the up side, however, if these are effective, even though he won't really cut down on the sheer number of required capsules to swallow, at least he won't need to worry about having nine different bottles/jars on his dresser or taking the right combinations of the correct things every day. He'll ideally have this single bottle and just count out the correct number of the same capsule, twice a day. Simplifies things somewhat, if not to the degree I was originally anticipating.

[MomWithOCDSon]

An update on these customized vitamins . . .

 

DS has been taking them since May and so far, so good!

 

What's more . . . happily . . . having the supplements combined and divided (sounds silly, I know, but hang with me here) into what they describe as 9 daily capsules has given us the opportunity to try titrating these supports down in a slow, measured way, over time. So now he's down to taking 7 capsules twice daily, rather than the 9 he began with, and he's holding his own and demonstrating no ill effects or behavioral regressions. We're encouraged and thinking we'll try taking it down to 6 capsules in the next few weeks and see how that goes. Would love DS to be able to take fewer capsules on a regular basis, and it would help stretch the supplies and budget, too!

 

Thus far, we're pretty impressed with this vendor, FWIW.

Edited August 18, 2014 by momwithocdson

[MomWithOCDSon]

Thought I'd post here since this thread seems to be still "primary" in this Nutrition and Supplement forum, in the event it's getting views despite not having many posts other than my own.

 

Unfortunately, the "blush is off the rose" with this particular vitamin manufacturer. When I last attempted to re-order, the web site was down. When I emailed the company directly, I was told that I could reorder; however, in addition to the standard cost of the supplements themselves, I'd be subject to a "testing fee" that effectively would double our all-in costs. Something about new rules enacted by the FDA impacting their business.

 

I'm all for some regulation of the supplement industry, but we really need to do something about the out-of-control spiraling costs of keeping oneself healthy in this country!

 

At any rate, we're back to the multiple bottles, multiple supplements. My latest attempt to simplify this a bit is to spend an hour or so every few weeks, creating our own "vitamin pacs," putting the right supplements into little Ziploc baggies sized for the purpose (got those at the Vitamin Shoppe) that DS can just grab and gobble, without having to sort out how much of what he's taking when. He's going to have to do that for himself eventually, I know, but if I can free him up in that regard a little longer, I feel as though that's contributing to him "not sweating the small stuff," you know? And the baggies are re-usable, so they're not a drain on financial resources.

 

Hopefully, another affordable, "designer supplement" company will come to light in the near future. If you hear of any, please let me know. Right now, the only alternatives I've been able to find are ones that tailor their formulas only so much, for "athletes" or for "the immune-challenged," etc. But I haven't found anyone else who will actually let us tell them, specifically, what goes into each capsule.

[OxBi]

I tried to access that company's site but I could because "For technical reasons we temporarily shut down the site." I guess I have to try later again...

[OxBi]

If a supplement company follows pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing practices is very unlikely such a company will get a warning letter from the FDA. Unfortunately, extremely few companies follows such standards because it isn't mandated by law. I'm not familiar with a custom-made supplement maker that adheres to such rigorous quality standards.

[OxBi]

Thought I'd post here since this thread seems to be still "primary" in this Nutrition and Supplement forum, in the event it's getting views despite not having many posts other than my own.

 

Unfortunately, the "blush is off the rose" with this particular vitamin manufacturer. When I last attempted to re-order, the web site was down. When I emailed the company directly, I was told that I could reorder; however, in addition to the standard cost of the supplements themselves, I'd be subject to a "testing fee" that effectively would double our all-in costs. Something about new rules enacted by the FDA impacting their business.

 

I'm all for some regulation of the supplement industry, but we really need to do something about the out-of-control spiraling costs of keeping oneself healthy in this country!

 

 

The way things are set up with the regulatory environment, any of the official calls for better regulation of the supplement industry will mean that only mainly ineffective products would be available, driving UP the "costs of keeping oneself healthy in this country" - Tougher Supplement Regulation: A Necessity Or Politics?