Calcium Intake: What is too much?

august111966

I have tried googling this to find information, I have looked over the forums, and I'm not finding too much information so wondering if anyone has any insight before I call my doctor and bug him.

I am currently suffering from some pretty horrendous heartburn, so TUMS have become my best friend. On top of that, I am taking a prenatal that has calcium in it. On top of that, I have a love/love relationship with cheese. In short, I am getting a large amount of calcium on the daily.
However, this is causing some serious constipation and I'm going to attempt to cut back on the tums and (sigh) cheese eating.

That said, I have a couple questions:

What is considered a dangerous amount of calcium? I have been reading about milk-alkali syndrome and hypercalcemia and its a little unnerving. The last thing I need is kidney problems. I already struggle with chronic UTIs so kidney issues are a constant fear of mine.

What besides calcium containing meds would you reccommend for heartburn? It's pretty terrible. It gives me anxiety.

tl;dr
What is considered too many milligrams of calcium, what are some other remedies for heartburn that are calcium-free.

peachesnpearls

I believe 2000 mg. you'd have to take this for awhile to have complications like kidney stones, etc. Zantac maybe. Safe after 1st trimester I think. But ask your ob

emzcat

From what Ive been told, you can only absorb 500mg of calcium at one time and the rest is disposed of. Also, calcium supplements rarely cause excessive calcium levels. You should discuss with your doctor though.

ks24119

Talk to your dr. I was told no more tums they didn't want kidney stones.

oliarnmom1517

I have cut back my calcium intake for those exact same reasons... My UTIs get so bad i can't even describe what how the pain feels.. But I have cut it back to literally a peice of cheese on a sandwich and a medium size glass of milk in the morning and I try to limit myself to 5 Tums a day... Just a couple in the morning and a couple at night and I have changed my diet as well and it has helped.. And sometimes I do take more then 5 tums however I do try to not eat a whole bunch of things that make my heartburn worst..

Edit for spelling errors

caitlin1784

I love dairy and am currently taking calcium tablets to help heal the fractured sternum I received the same week I conceived. I haven't had any issues/UTIs and pharmacist/ dr said this was ok?

AmyReneT

I asked my doctor about calcium and kidney stones since I've had MULTIPLE kidney stones since I was 12. he said just make sure you only do one serving of calcium at a time (like one thing of yogurt, one glass of milk, ect) if you eat over the amount of calcium then that's when your body needs to flush it out and that's when build up can happen to cause the kidney stones.

lovey31

The upper tolerable limit for calcium or the most you can have in a day w/o potential negative affects is 2500 mg for a pregnant adult woman.

VexyMommy

I was told no more than 10 tums in a day if I'm eating an average diet.  I don't do much milk and only some cheese so I feel comfortable that I'm staying within my limits.