Why I Keep NatureWise Vitamin D3 in My Kitchen

The bottle I reach for first in the morning is the smallest one in the cabinet. It holds 360 mini softgels, and it sits on the second shelf to the left of my sink, next to a multivitamin and a blue plastic pill box. It is NatureWise Vitamin D3, 5000 IU. I bought the first bottle thirty months ago, after my doctor brought it up at my yearly physical, and I am on my third.

I am Marlene Ostrow. I retired three years ago after thirty one years as a middle school librarian in Dayton, Ohio, and I read labels the way I used to read a reference book: slowly, with reading glasses on and a pencil in my hand. My doctor is a woman I have seen for years. She is the one who brought up vitamin D, not me, and she is the one who picked the amount.

That part matters to me. 5000 IU is a strong softgel, and I did not choose the number off a shelf or off a website. My doctor chose it after my physical, and she checks it again each year. If you are standing in an aisle wondering what number is right for you, that is a question for your own doctor or pharmacist, not for me.

Here is what the label on my bottle actually says, copied out the way I wrote it on my index card: vitamin D3, 125 mcg per softgel, 5000 IU, in organic cold pressed olive oil that the label says is made without heat or hexanes. Gluten free. Unflavored. Softgel. 360 count. The directions line says do not exceed one softgel daily. The bottle also says the supplement is manufactured in the USA in a facility that follows cGMP and undergoes independent third party audits. I wrote that down because I like knowing where a thing is made.

My routine is one mini softgel at breakfast, about eight in the morning, with food and water. It goes in the AM lid of my pill box, which I fill on Sunday evenings at the kitchen table. Breakfast is when I take the multivitamin too, so I am not remembering two separate times. One softgel, one glass of water, done.

I cannot tell you I feel a difference from any one bottle, and I would not trust anyone who says they can.

The reason it is a softgel and not a dropper is simple. I have never owned liquid vitamin D3 drops. I stood in the store and read the label on a bottle once, and I pictured myself counting drops at the counter with my reading glasses pushed up, and I did not want that. Drops also do not go in a pill box. A softgel goes in the AM lid and stays there until morning.

A bottle lasts me about a year. Three hundred and sixty mini softgels, one a day. I have rebought the same bottle twice, and I am not a person who enjoys shopping for this, so a repeat purchase means nothing went wrong.

What I do not love: softgels can get sticky and clump together if they sit somewhere warm, and the listing says so itself. My cabinet is away from the stove for exactly that reason. And 360 is a large number to buy if your doctor ever changes your amount. The cabinet door also stays shut, because Dewey, my cat, is eleven and treats the kitchen counters like a hiking trail. Vitamins are for people. He gets none, ever.

The label says immune support, with an asterisk beside it. That asterisk is the part I read most carefully, and it means the FDA has not evaluated that statement. The label also lists bone health, calcium absorption, muscle and teeth support. I am not going to tell you what any of that did for me, because I cannot know, and neither can you from the outside.

What I can tell you about is the bottle, the size of the softgel, and how easy it is to keep up with. The softgels are small and easy to swallow, which is not nothing at sixty three. There is no flavor to get past. And a year between purchases suits the way I shop, which is rarely.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you were across from me with a cup of coffee, here is what I would say. Do not copy my index card. It has five items on it, and it was built one conversation at a time with my doctor over about three years. What suits a sixty three year old woman in Ohio who lives alone is not automatically right for you. Take your own list to your own doctor, or to the pharmacist at your grocery store. Mine has caught an overlap for me more than once, including the vitamin D already in my multivitamin.

I would also say this. Ask before you buy a bottle of 360. Ask about the amount, ask whether it overlaps with anything else you take, and ask again if anything changes. Anyone on a prescription, anyone pregnant, and anyone managing a health condition should ask first and not take my word for anything. I am a retired librarian with a pencil, not a doctor.

And one more thing, about the big bottle. Buying 360 at once is a commitment, and I made it because my amount has not changed in two and a half years. If yours is still being worked out, a smaller count makes more sense, even if it means buying again sooner. That is the sort of arithmetic I do at the table with my pencil, and I would rather redo it than sit on a bottle I should not be using.