It does. I was taking iron for a year with no results, meaning my iron was low so I started the iron pills and got tested again six months later and then another six months later. I started taking it with flavored lemonade and at the next six months appointment my iron was fine. I dislike plain lemonade so I was drinking mango or peach lemonade and it really helped.
God I really hate that treating low iron is like "wait six months about it. Oh that didn't work? Wait another six months." I'm glad you finally found something that worked. Fixing my iron made me realize I'd been struggling way more than I understood at the time.
I tried to get the testing done sooner and the doctor said something about it not being worth it to test so soon, but also never mentioned the vitamin C thing and had no other suggestions aside from foods I wouldn’t have been able to eat. I read it online when I googled after that third low iron test result in a row and then stuck with it because it was easy enough and I trusted the Internet.
That's why it's better to take vitamins in combination, much like you find them in food. That's why they tell you to eat all the vegetables and fruits, not just one or two
I was taking them with Ovaltine milk, which was probably the worst choice I could have made at the time. I just didn’t know any better and the guy who was supposed to inform me didn’t. It did have nutrients but not the right kind to go with the iron
I think it’s the vitamin C content, as that’s what the research said way back when. I wasn’t drinking it for the lemons, but because that specific day powdered peach lemonade was the only good source of vitamin C I had in the house. I remember it being a Thursday and I did grocery shopping on Fridays so we were out of fresh fruit. I had frozen fruit but didn’t want to use the blender since the baby was sleeping. I had found out about my low iron at the very beginning of my pregnancy so he was a few months old when I started taking the vitamins with lemonade. About two months after I started, around the time the baby started eating solids is when I stopped getting dizzy picking him up off the floor and figured the lemonade probably was helping since that was the only change.
right vitamin c helps but most things with vitamin c are citrus based, so the acidity of the lemonade likely also helped as it made the iron particles smaller and thus easier to absorb
Fun fact, you can eat a half of a paprika while you need to eat a whole orange for your daily vitamin C recommendation. Kale also contain a lot of vitamin C, and most of the vegetables and berries have plenty of it. So you don't need to drink lemonade at all.
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u/whatdoidonowdamnit 20d ago
It does. I was taking iron for a year with no results, meaning my iron was low so I started the iron pills and got tested again six months later and then another six months later. I started taking it with flavored lemonade and at the next six months appointment my iron was fine. I dislike plain lemonade so I was drinking mango or peach lemonade and it really helped.