How serious is a vitamin A overdose? I think I might have it.. I've been feeling a bit dizzy today, last night I was kind of numb in my face, and today it sometimes feels a bit like I'm leaning back when I'm not, etc.. seems like my vestubular apparatus is screwed or something. I started looking for possible reasons, and it seems the dizzyness could be a symptom of vitamin A, and I have been eating ****loads of it lately. 50-100g of "leverpostei" every day for at least a week, now 100g of this contains 4450 µg Retinol, which is a lot.

I was kind of freaked out by the numbness, since that could be a sign of all kinds of serious brain stuff.. but it's gone now (I had it yesterday) today it's just the vestibular thing..

Anyways, if it is vitamin A overdose and I just make sure I stop eating a lot of vit A for a while, should I be ok? Or do I need some kind of treatment?

Karky, you'd have to be ingesting copious quantities of Vitamin A to be toxic. Acute toxicity occurs at doses of ~25,000 IU/kg of body weight, and chronic toxicity occurs at 4,000 IU/kg of body weight daily over a period of 6-15 months.

I was not aware that numbness was a side effect of Vitamin A toxicity. Liver damage is. Drinking a lot of alcohol increases the toxicity of Vitamin A. Have you been drinking a lot, Karky?

The fact you have numbness and dizziness just makes me nervous. If I were you, I'd go to my doctor and tell him my symptoms. It might be a middle or inner ear infection, although whenever I hear "numbness", that's a red flag for me. It's not normal to have numbness anywhere.

EDIT: See next post

I stand corrected, Karky. You can have peripheral neuritis with Vitamin A toxicity.

Maybe your body is not happy with the amount you're taking. Back off of the Vitamin A and see if the numbness goes away.

Haven't been drinking. And I don't know if numbness is a symptom, but I was kinda hoping it was and that I was just having too much vit a

50,773 IU is the amount in 100g of the thing I've been eating.. but if it takes very long then vit A can't be it..
I'm just gonna have to see, if I still feel weird over the weekend I need to see a doc.

Peripheral neuritis with Vitamin A toxicity.. What is that? Can it be brought on by a lot of vitamin A alone? or are there any other exposure factors? If there are, could you list them? That way I could see if it fits what I've been doing.

Peripheral neuritis (or peripheral neuropathy):

MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Peripheral neuropathy
eMedicine - Vitamin A Toxicity : Article by Mohsen S Eledrisi

Hope that helps.

I can't find any connection between vitamin A overload and peripheral neuropathy..
Could I get neuropathy from excessive vitamin A intake?

And taking in the doses I am taking, I would have to keep them up for several months before I could get vitamin A toxicity symptoms..

eMedicine - Vitamin A Toxicity : Article by Mohsen S Eledrisi. Cursor down to "Physical". Then to "Manifestations of chronic toxicity". The 12th manifestation is "peripheral neuritis".

The irony of this is if you have a lack of Vitamin A, you can also have peripheral neuritis.

I've been getting a lot of vitamin A since the 22nd of october. It's not only from the leverpostei, but from a multivitamin too (which started before) and multivitamin is not vit A from beta carotine, so what I get from the vitamin would add to my chanses.. But it's only a week or so of a lot of vitamin A.. maybe it varies. And over that week it has been a lot more than 25k IUs too.. 3 of the days were as high as 60k. There could be more, but some days I'm a bit lazy with my food logging.

Well, see if the numbness persists. If it does, go to the doc and tell him what you're taking.

Karky, have you ever had any numbness before (other than the normal numbness you get when you sleep on your arm and it feels like it's the size of an elephant's leg and weighs 350 pounds)?

I'm assuming it's a tingling/cold numbness sensation?

Never had any numbness before except for for the usual reasons like you mentioned.
Tingling, yes, cold.. not so much. The cheeck had a bit of tingling, and felt a bit like I had loss of sensation, but I didn't have any problem identifying if someone poked me with a needle, etc. But the cheek felt kind of weird.. like it was made of leather or something (I checked.. I basically ran a buttload of reflex tests on myself Learning about neural stuff in school can make you into the biggest hypocondriac )

Oh, you've just got "Everything by Proxy", Karky

That happens when you're studying the body or the mind.

When I took an abnormal psychology course, I thought the author of the text book had followed me around for a year and then written my biography. Not that I'm paranoid or anything ...

lol I do think my symptoms are real though. But I don't think that knowing how serious numbness can be helps me Since I just think about it all the time and thus notice everything. It's like if your hair is tickling your forehead or something (making it feel like it's tingling), you think you're gonna die from a brain tumor

Exactly. Or if you get dizzy, you're either having a stroke or you've got an inoperable brain tumor. It's human nature

Obviously you're not imagining your numbness, so please don't ignore it. I think it would be a good idea to talk with your doctor. It may have absolutely nothing to do with the Vitamin A -- that might just be a coincidence. See how you feel over the weekend. If it goes away, great. If it doesn't, go see your doc. And if it goes away and then comes back, definitely go see your doc.

I hope it goes away

I haven't been numb all day. Haven't been dizze since this morning. My eyes are feeling a bit weird right now but I am kinda tired (it's 00:00 here)