Honestly, I can never tell a difference with any of them, as far as how I feel. My problem is finding one that I'll actually take. Most multi-vitamins are like horse pills, and I hate taking them because they get stuck in my throat. I love the Viactiv multi-vitamin chews -- they don't taste too bad (the calcium ones are actually yummy), and they're easy to take. I leave them at work on my desk, and take a couple a day.

Rivkadr,
Thanks, I never thought to try the chews, and I'm supposed to take calcium now that I'm over the hill! So I'll look into that.

I know vitamins can be like horse pills. Here is a tip for you next time you get a large pill stuck, or even a dry aspirin stuck in the throat is nasty tasting, too!!:

Take a big sip of water, and turn your head to the far right or left, then swallow that water. Repeat, turning the head to the opposite side. Usually, just doing that changes the tube of the throat enough to scoot that horse pill down it's way!!!!

I take a liquid multi-vitamin called Daily Complete. It's made by a company called Awareness. If you type it in a search engine you should find a ton of websites you can get it from. It has something like 200 nutrients in it. I love the stuff. It might be something helpful for you.

Multivitamins won't correct an iron deficiency. You need more iron than that andprobably other minerals. If you don't see a doctor, I would, you could try taking black strap molasses. Iron supplements tend to constipate so that's also a consideration. Low iron can cause tired feelings. If anemia is caused by other than heavy periods, you really need a diagnosis by a doctor with lab tests.

I was taking a "one-a-day" vitamin for a while but stopped, I didn't really notice a difference. Now I take supplements of iron, Vitamin C, Zinc, and Garlic, all of which seem to work, I don't run out of energy during the day. Supposedly zinc helps dandruff, too.

Anemia is the result of low iron, low hemoglobin. You need to take iron to correct this problem. Check with your doctor for the cause of your anemia. It may be heavy periods or internal bleeding or poor nutrition, or certain illnesses (Cooley's Anemia, kidney disease). Be careful with multi vitamins, overdosing on Vitamin A and certain minerals can be bad for you. You really can't consume too much of the B vitamins or C. Excess amounts of these vitamins are excreted if you are in good health.

I think taking a multi vitamin helps me. I feel a little more draggy without it.
I just use GNC's Women's Mega Multi. I haven't done scads of research on these though. GNC is everywhere and hopefully the fact that chain is still open after years means that there product is deemed good by others who have done the research LOL:)

On a recent Oprah with Dr. Oz, he suggested that the average wooman take a multivitamin but to cut it in half, take one part in the morning and the other in the evening because if you take it whole, most isn't absorbed by the body. He also said that if you were a woman and not of reproductive age that you didn't need one with extra iron or extra vitamin A. Exceptions would be if your blood test show low iron or if you did not get much exposure to daylight.

He suggested everyone take 2 baby aspirin a day if over 40 for heart health, 1000 units (hope that is the term) of Vitamin D and DHA Omega 3. Women should take Calicum w/mag.

I jotted this down while watching the show but you should probably check the Oprah website. The info is there. I don't want to mislead anyone.

I'm supposedly anemic, but I don't do anything about it. I am usually just below the reference range and I don't have any symptoms except that they won't let me donate blood. Once I was within the reference range, but my blood pressure was too low. So I just can't donate blood.

Anyway, unless you are very anemic or are having symptoms, you may not have to do anything. Remember that reference ranges were made by taking a bunch of supposedly healthy people and seeing what their PCV was. The numbers in the middle 95% are the reference range. You could be perfectly healthy and have a different number, because the reference range doesn't say anything about whether or not the number is good. For example, if you took 10000 average Americans and got their weights, and took the 95% most common range, the reference range would almost certainly be unhealthy because most Americans are over weight. Just because most people fall within a certain range doesn't mean that it is a healthy number. Your number may be different.

Now if you are having symptoms, or if your doctor feels your PCV is way too low, then you should find out what is going on. Your body may not be making enough red blood cells for any number of reasons (iron is only one cause of not being able to make enough RBCs- kidney disease, bone disease, steroids, and many many many other things can also cause low RBCs), your body may be destroying red blood cells, or you may be losing red blood cells as with a gastric ulcer or something.

Iron supplements only help with one of probably thousands of causes of anemia. It's best to find out what is going on rather than to self-medicate. Unless your doctor feels that you are otherwise healthy, you may just be slightly anemic like me with no problems.

I notice a positive difference when I take Vitamin B. It is good for the nervous system and metabolism.

My iron levels float a little low, too, never in the real "anemic" range, but just low enough to so prevent me from donating blood.

I take a generic multivitamin that has added iron. The only place I've been able to find it is at Wal-Mart (Target and Walgreen's didn't have it last time I went). It was easier to take than 2 supplements, and it really helped me with my energy levels. And, I can give blood again.

Unlike prescription drugs and over-th-counter drugs, the manufacture of vitamins and herbal preparations is not regulated by the FDA. (Australia and Germany are the only 2 countries that regulate the manufacture of vitamins and herbal products the way they regulate medicines.) That means they can put whatever they want in their pills, and they are not required to check the quality or consistency of their products. In many proven cases, the concentration of active ingredients claimed on the label are found to be wrong by testing of the pills in the laboratory. There have even been cases, fortunately rare, when the manufacturer actually admitted selling a product that did NOT HAVE ANY of the active ingredient claimed for the product.

For this reason, I favor vitamin pills from large, well established companies, because they are the ones that can afford to have on-going test programs during the manufacture of their product, so you can be confident you're getting what you pay for.