Learn About Pantothenic Acid

Pantothenic acid is vitamin B5! Ladies, it's an essential vitamin and helps your body make stress hormones and red blood cells. Lots of foods have it, like cabbage, potatoes, broccoli, and whole-grain cereal. When you're over 14 years old, you need 5 mg a day! However, ladies, when you're pregnant or breastfeeding, you need 7 mg daily. Thankfully, a deficiency in vitamin B5 is very rare in the US. Most of the time, it only happens when you're malnourished!

Vitamin B5 supplements are great for a deficiency. Ladies, they're available as OTC tablets, though prescriptions are out there too! Of course, pantothenic acid supplements for acne are getting more and more popular. Some people even say they're amazing supplements for adrenal gland health. Others love them for arthritis pain relief! That said, you've got to understand how they work first. This is so you know they're safe and buy the best vitamin B5 supplements for you!

How It Works

Pantothenic acid's water-soluble. This means the excess leaves your body through your pee! Ladies, you need vitamin B5 for coenzyme A synthesis. This is an essential enzyme in your citric acid cycle. You're going to have a much easier time breaking down carbs, fats, and other nutrients for energy with vitamin B5.

You will see pantothenol in most vitamin B5 supplements out there. Ladies, this is what your body converts to pantothenic acid! Many of these vitamins also have some calcium pantothenate. This is a type of salt! It's going to protect your supplements from deteriorating due to heat or acid. It also maintains their potency!

Uses

Remember, pantothenic acid's also vitamin B5! That means it works like many other B-vitamins, converting fats, carbs, and proteins into energy. Ladies, this vitamin's also essential for the health of your skin, hair, and eyes! It will also support your liver function and nervous system. You need it to make hormones in your adrenal glands and produce red blood cells. Correcting a vitamin B5 deficiency is a major use for pantothenic supplements. They will relieve many of the symptoms, like headaches, fatigue, and irritability.

That said, there are more uses for vitamin B5 supplements! Ladies, they help treat conditions like allergies, leg cramps, acne, and low blood pressure. They're even supposed to be good for pink eye and dermatitis! Some of you will take them for PMS, wound healing, and obesity too. However, there isn't enough research on B5 supplements being effective at treating these things. That's why you need to talk to your doctor about proven treatments first!

Side Effects

Ladies, these supplements have side effects! The most common, of course, is an upset stomach. Other common ones are headaches, constipation, sore throat, diarrhea, nausea, and dizziness. You have to watch for pain in your abdomen, UTIs, new-onset diabetes, muscle pain, joint pain, and a lack of energy too. Some of you will find that your blood test results change when you're on these supplements. Common changes are increased ALT and increase CPK. This is referring to alanine transaminase and creatine phosphokinase, respectively.

Ladies, other effects are pancreatitis and flu-like symptoms. There are some rare ones too, like muscle disease, muscle wasting, and jaundice. You have to call your doctor when you have these side effects or when common ones don't go away. Ladies, get urgent attention for severe vomiting and diarrhea!

Precautions

Talk to your doctor when you want to take vitamin B5 supplements. Do it before you take anything! Ladies, tell them about your health history and current medications. They will help you figure out when these supplements are safe. This is even more important when you're pregnant or breastfeeding. Allergies are a concern with these supplements. Ladies, take them with caution when you have any allergies! Ones of note include food allergies and when you have reacted to other medicines before. Tell your doctor when this applies to you.

Be sure to go over the safest effective dose. Ladies, make sure you get regular blood tests! Your results determine when you should stop taking vitamin B5 supplements. That said, you always have to talk to your doctor before doing so! This applies to changing your dose too. Finally, ladies, take these supplements with some food and water. You will avoid an upset stomach this way!

Medication Interactions

Here's some good news: vitamin B5 supplements don't have severe interactions with any medications! That said, there are some moderate medication interactions. Specifically, these supplements interact with certain antibiotics. Ladies, some examples are erythromycin, azithromycin, and clarithromycin! There are also over 60 mild interactions with vitamin B5 supplements.

These are the reasons why you need to talk to a doctor before taking vitamin B5 supplements. Ladies, tell them about all of your current medications. Prescriptions, OTC drugs, and other supplements are all included here! Your doctor will check for interactions with vitamin B5 supplements for you. You can also ask your pharmacist to help you out!