Vitamin A
Vitamin A is an essential nutrient used to treat vitamin A deficiency by injection, and topically to protect and soothe skin conditions including diaper rash, minor cuts, and chapped skin.
🧬 Where this information comes from Click to expand
The clinical label records used on this page are FDA-filed Structured Product Labeling (SPL) retrieved through openFDA. We identified 2 clinical label sets within the page’s selected clinical scope after exact ingredient or ingredient-combination matching and applicable route/form matching. Forms, routes, brands, labelers, strengths, and NDC product-record counts are built separately from matching FDA National Drug Code Directory records. The linked DailyMed document is a representative official source for verification, not the page’s only clinical source. View the linked label on DailyMed →
Vitamin A, an essential nutrient for night vision and healthy skin on the market since about 1947, comes as Aquasol A, an injection reserved for deficiency when it cannot be taken by mouth, and as Vitamin A D ointment, an over-the-counter skin protectant for diaper rash and chapped skin. Both are well tolerated at normal doses, with the ointment occasionally irritating skin and the injection rarely triggering an allergic reaction. The risk is too much vitamin A (hypervitaminosis A), so call your prescriber for severe headache, bone pain, peeling skin or blurred vision. High doses are off-limits in pregnancy, where they are linked to birth defects.
Clinical pearls
- Aquasol A goes only into a muscle, never a vein, and is replaced by a supplement by mouth once possible.
- Add up every source, including multivitamins, because vitamin A is stored in the liver and builds up over time.
- For diaper rash, apply the ointment at every change and especially at bedtime, but never on deep wounds or serious burns.
- Stop the ointment if skin worsens or is not better after 7 days; call Poison Control if it is swallowed.
Patient information guide A plain-language walkthrough of Vitamin A, written from its FDA label.
What Vitamin A is used for
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Vitamin A is an essential nutrient used across several products for different purposes depending on the form and route.
- Aquasol A (intramuscular injection): Treats vitamin A deficiency in adults, children, and infants when oral intake is not possible due to nausea, vomiting, anorexia, pre- or post-surgical conditions, or malabsorption syndrome (a condition where the gut cannot absorb nutrients properly).
- Vitamin A D ointment (topical): Helps treat chafed skin from diaper rash, seals out wetness, temporarily protects minor cuts, scrapes, and burns, and relieves chapped or cracked skin and lips.
- Vitamin A D ointment (topical): Helps protect skin from the drying effects of wind and cold weather.
How Vitamin A works
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Vitamin A works in several important ways. In the eye, it joins with a protein called opsin to form rhodopsin — the pigment your retina needs to see in low light. It also supports normal growth and helps keep epithelial cells (the protective cells lining your skin and body organs) healthy and intact. The body stores vitamin A in the liver and can draw on those reserves for up to about two years.
Vitamin A is absorbed from the digestive tract with the help of bile salts, pancreatic enzymes, and dietary fat. It travels to the liver via the lymphatic system and is stored there mainly as retinol palmitate until the body needs it.
Vitamin A dosage
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How vitamin A is taken depends entirely on the product and your situation. Aquasol A is given as an intramuscular injection (into a muscle, never a vein) by a healthcare provider, with the course and frequency determined by age and severity of deficiency. After a course of Aquasol A injections, the prescriber will typically transition you to an oral vitamin A supplement to complete treatment. Vitamin A D ointment is applied directly to the skin as often as needed — for diaper rash, apply with every diaper change and especially at bedtime.
- Never adjust your Aquasol A dose on your own — always follow your prescriber's instructions.
- For the topical ointment, apply a liberal layer to clean, dry skin.
Dosing details from the FDA-approved label
From the Vitamin A prescribing information (“Dosage and Administration”). Doses are set by your prescriber for your product, condition, kidney function and age — never change a dose on your own.
- Adults (Aquasol A, intramuscular)
- 100,000 Units daily for three days followed by 50,000 Units daily for two weeks
- Follow-up with an oral therapeutic multivitamin containing 10,000 to 20,000 Units vitamin A daily for two months (adults and pediatric patients over 8 years old)
- Pediatric patients 1 to 8 years old (Aquasol A, intramuscular)
- 17,500 to 35,000 Units daily for 10 days
- Follow-up with an oral therapeutic multivitamin containing 5,000 to 10,000 Units vitamin A daily for two months (pediatric patients under 8 years old)
- Infants (Aquasol A, intramuscular)
- 7,500 to 15,000 Units daily for 10 days
- Follow-up with an oral therapeutic multivitamin containing 5,000 to 10,000 Units vitamin A daily for two months; low birth-weight infants may require additional vitamin A, exact dosing not established
- Vitamin A D ointment, topical (diaper area)
- Apply ointment liberally as often as necessary, with each diaper change, and especially at bedtime or anytime when exposure to wet diapers may be prolonged
- Apply as needed
- Change wet and soiled diapers promptly; cleanse the diaper area and allow to dry
Read the label’s full dosing text
Directions • After 10 washes, in order to continue receiving the hydrating benefits, the garment will need to be re-infused with SKINEEZ® GARMENT SPRAY® (not included). • Machine wash the garment in cold water with like colors, then while wet turn it inside out and spray the areas of the garment that you wish to re-infuse. • Tumble dry low or lay flat to dry. • Do not Bleach.
Read the full Dosage and Administration section on DailyMed →
Vitamin A side effects
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Serious side effects from vitamin A are most often linked to getting too much (overdose or hypervitaminosis A) rather than normal therapeutic use.
Common side effects
- Allergic reactions (reported rarely with Aquasol A injection)
- Fatigue and malaise with excessive doses
- Nausea and vomiting with excessive doses
- Headache with excessive doses
- Dry, cracking, or peeling skin with excessive doses
- Hair loss with excessive doses
- Skin irritation at the topical application site
- Fatigue, malaise, and loss of appetite
- Severe headache and irritability
- Bone pain and tenderness
When to get medical help
- Get emergency help immediately if you experience signs of a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) such as trouble breathing, swelling, or collapse — this has been reported with Aquasol A injection
- Call your doctor if signs of too much vitamin A appear: severe headache, blurred vision, bulging eyes, bone pain, or yellowing of the skin
- Stop using Vitamin A D ointment and ask a doctor if the skin condition gets worse or does not improve after 7 days
- Do not use Vitamin A D ointment on deep or puncture wounds, animal bites, or serious burns — seek medical care instead
- If topical product is swallowed, contact Poison Control (1-800-222-1222) immediately
Anaphylactic shock (a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction) and death have been reported with intravenous (IV) use of vitamin A — this is why Aquasol A must only be given intramuscularly. If you notice signs of a severe allergic reaction after an injection, seek emergency help immediately.
Vitamin A warnings and precautions
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- Too much vitamin A is dangerous (hypervitaminosis A): High doses over time can damage the liver, bones, skin, and nervous system. Watch for severe headache, bone pain, skin peeling, hair loss, or yellowing of the skin.
- Pregnancy: Vitamin A above the recommended dietary allowance is contraindicated during pregnancy. It can cause serious birth defects affecting the brain, eyes, palate, and urinary tract. If you are pregnant or may become pregnant, do not take high-dose vitamin A without direct medical supervision.
- IV use is forbidden: Aquasol A must never be injected into a vein — anaphylactic shock and deaths have occurred this way.
- Topical product (Vitamin A D ointment): For external use on skin only. Do not use on deep wounds, animal bites, or serious burns. Stop use and see a doctor if the condition worsens or doesn't improve within 7 days.
Vitamin A interactions
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The FDA label evidence provided does not detail specific drug or food interactions for vitamin A products.
Not a complete list. The label covers the interactions the manufacturer studied or reported, and our own interaction database does not cover every medicine either. Bring your full medication list, including vitamins and herbal products, to your pharmacist.
Before taking Vitamin A
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- Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or planning to become pregnant — high-dose vitamin A is contraindicated and can harm the baby.
- Tell your doctor if you already have too much vitamin A in your body (hypervitaminosis A) — this is a contraindication for further supplementation.
- Tell your doctor about any known allergies to ingredients in the vitamin A preparation you are being prescribed.
- Aquasol A must only be given intramuscularly — IV administration is contraindicated.
- Infants, young children, and low birth-weight babies have specific dosing considerations; always follow the prescriber's guidance for pediatric patients.
Vitamin A overdose
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Taking too much vitamin A — either a single very large dose or smaller excessive doses over months — can lead to hypervitaminosis A. Symptoms include fatigue, severe headache, nausea, vomiting, bone pain, skin peeling, hair loss, liver damage, and in serious cases, increased pressure inside the skull. The treatment is to stop taking vitamin A immediately and receive supportive medical care. If you think you or someone else has had too much vitamin A, contact your doctor or seek medical attention promptly.
What Vitamin A does in the body
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Vitamin A is essential for vision in dim light — it forms part of rhodopsin, the pigment in retinal rod cells that allows the eye to adapt to darkness. It also helps maintain normal growth and preserves the integrity of epithelial cells throughout the body. The liver stores enough vitamin A to meet the body's needs for approximately two years under normal conditions.
How your body processes Vitamin A
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Vitamin A is readily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract, but this process requires bile salts, pancreatic lipase, and dietary fat to work properly. Once absorbed, it is carried to the liver through the lymphatic system via particles called chylomicrons. The liver stores vitamin A mainly in a form called retinol palmitate within specialized cells, and releases it into the bloodstream as needed. Normal blood levels of vitamin A range from 80 to 300 Units per 100 mL.
Written from the FDA-approved label with AI and reviewed by our pharmacy team. How we use AI →
Supplements & herbs that interact with Vitamin A
28 supplements and herbal products have documented interactions with Vitamin A in the licensed clinical database we use. Most are manageable — but your pharmacist should know about everything you take, including vitamins and herbals.
- Major · 1
- Moderate · 16
- Minor · 11
Educational information from a licensed clinical database (Natural Medicines) — see our data sources & update cadence. Not medical advice: an interaction being documented does not mean it will happen to you; do not start or stop medications or supplements without professional guidance.
Vitamin A: pharmacist answers to common questions
Quick, plain-English answers to the questions patients ask most about Vitamin A — the kind of thing our pharmacy team would talk through with you at the counter.
Why would I need a vitamin A injection instead of just taking a supplement by mouth?
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Can too much vitamin A hurt me?
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Is vitamin A safe to use during pregnancy?
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What is the Vitamin A D ointment actually used for?
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Are there any serious reactions I should watch for with the Aquasol A injection?
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Can children receive vitamin A treatment?
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Is Vitamin A available over the counter?
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When was Vitamin A first available?
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Answers drafted from the FDA-approved label with AI and reviewed by our pharmacy team. How we use AI →
More about Vitamin A on HelloPharmacist
Vitamin A forms and strengths (how it comes)
Vitamin A is available in 2 forms. Different forms and brands can have different approved uses, doses, schedules, and directions. Follow the instructions for your exact product, and do not switch forms without guidance from your prescriber or pharmacist.
Need a version that does not list lactose, a gluten source, a dye or gelatin? Inactive ingredients differ by manufacturer: see Vitamin A inactive ingredients by manufacturer.
Topical cream, ointment or gel
How this form is used
- Vitamin A D ointment helps treat chafed skin associated with diaper rash
- Vitamin A D ointment temporarily protects minor cuts, scrapes, and burns
- Vitamin A D ointment helps relieve and protect chapped or cracked skin and lips
- Vitamin A D ointment helps protect skin from drying effects of wind and cold weather
- Vitamin A D ointment: apply to the affected skin area as needed; for diaper rash, apply liberally with each diaper change and especially at bedtime
- Vitamin A D ointment: cleanse and dry the diaper area before applying; change wet or soiled diapers promptly
- Vitamin A D ointment is for external use only — keep away from eyes and do not use on deep wounds, animal bites, or serious burns
- Skineez: after 10 washes, re-infuse the garment with Skineez Garment Spray to maintain hydrating benefits; machine wash in cold water and tumble dry low — do not bleach
Other oral form
Vitamin A on the U.S. market: products, makers and brands
How Vitamin A appears in the FDA’s National Drug Code Directory — including its dosage forms, strengths, brand names, manufacturers, and FDA-listed product records. These are directory records, not sales or prescription volume.
1 company lists 1 Vitamin A product record with the FDA, mostly as topical cream, ointment or gel, other oral form; the earliest marketing or approval year on record is 1947. Brand names on the directory include Aquasol A; the rest are generics.
FDA-listed product records by dose form (tablet variants merged) — FDA National Drug Code Directory. Record counts are not sales or prescription volume.
How widely Vitamin A is used (Medicaid data)
A general measure of how commonly Vitamin A is prescribed, based on Medicaid — one of the largest public drug programs. The figure below is prescriptions filled in Q1–Q4 2025, summed across every form and brand of the drug.
Think of this as a proxy for how widely Vitamin A is used, drawn from freely available public data. Medicaid is just one program — these numbers don’t include Medicare, other government coverage, or commercial and cash-pay prescriptions, so real-world use is higher than what’s shown here.
How commonly is Vitamin A prescribed? Of the 1,601 medications we measure, Vitamin A ranks #1,555 by Medicaid prescriptions — more than 3% of them.
Utilization by Vitamin A product
Pick a product to see its own Medicaid numbers. Each chip is one clinical product — a specific strength & dosage form as defined by RxNorm — with brand-name and generic versions combined.
2 ML vitamin A 50000 UNT/ML Injection
Summed across the 1 of 2 listed NDC products with Medicaid activity — every brand and generic of this exact strength & form. RxNorm 313650
Shares are of the Medicaid prescriptions shown here. Product grouping follows RxNorm (the National Library of Medicine’s drug terminology), so “one product” means one strength & dosage form regardless of manufacturer. Dollar figures are gross Medicaid reimbursement before mandatory rebates — rebates (often large, especially for brand-name drugs) are confidential, so actual net cost to Medicaid is lower than shown.
Source: Medicaid State Drug Utilization Data (CMS), aggregated by generic ingredient — summed across every NDC (all brands, strengths, salt forms and dosage forms) of Vitamin A, and across all states and both fee-for-service and managed-care claims. A general popularity signal; it excludes Medicare, commercial insurance and cash prescriptions, so it is not total U.S. use. Based on the 1 of 2 listed Vitamin A NDCs with Medicaid activity.
Compare Vitamin A products
A representative set of FDA-listed product records for Vitamin A — across manufacturers, strengths, and dosage forms, grouped by form with each product’s manufacturer and how the FDA approved it. The same medicine may be made and packaged by different companies, so a single drug can have many directory entries. (It’s also why a refill can look different — a new shape, color, or box — even though it contains the same medication.)
| Strength | Route | Manufacturer / Labeler | Category ⓘ | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 💊Topical cream, ointment or gel | ||||
| 93 g/100 g | Topical | Henry Schein | OTC MONOGRAPH DRUG | View NDC → |
Showing 1 of 1 products — FDA National Drug Code Directory. See every product, package size and price: browse all 1 Vitamin A NDCs →
Vitamin A side effects reported to the FDA (FAERS)
After a medicine reaches the market, patients, doctors and drugmakers can send the FDA reports of problems they think may be linked to it. Here’s what’s been reported for Vitamin A — a signal of what to watch for, not proof the drug caused it.
Source: openFDA, from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). These are voluntary reports — they don’t prove the drug caused the effect, and counts reflect how often something was reported, not how often it actually happens. Reports also often name the very problem the medicine is taken for — a common reason to file one is that the drug didn’t help — so for a pain reliever you may see “pain” high on the list; that points to why the report was filed, not to the drug causing the symptom. This counts every report that lists Vitamin A in any role, so the total runs higher than the FDA’s official dashboard, which counts only cases where the drug is the suspect. For the authoritative figures, see the FDA FAERS Public Dashboard. Always talk to your pharmacist or doctor.
Vitamin A FDA approval history
How Vitamin A went from FDA review to the pharmacy shelf — the key milestones in its regulatory journey.
Source: Drugs@FDA.
Vitamin A recall history
A recall is when a specific batch of a medicine is pulled from the market — usually a manufacturing issue, not a problem with the drug itself. Class I is most serious, Class III least.
The FDA’s enforcement reports list no Vitamin A recalls since July 2021.
✅No Vitamin A recalls on record since July 2021Source: FDA enforcement (recall) reports, via openFDA; our copy was last updated Sep 24, 2026.
RxNorm Concept Web — From Ingredient to Every Form and Strength
This page starts with one ingredient concept (IN). The branches below show its dose-form concepts (SCDF), then the available clinical drug and strength concepts (SCD). Combination products remain separate concepts with their own pages.
RxCUI 11246 5 dose forms · 11 strengths
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Dose form (SCDF) Injection RxCUI 1872465No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) 2 ML vitamin A 50000 UNT/MLRxCUI 313650 -
Dose form (SCDF) Oral Capsule RxCUI 374301No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) 2.4 MGRxCUI 31365210000 UNTRxCUI 31363815000 UNTRxCUI 31364125000 UNTRxCUI 31365450000 UNTRxCUI 313656 -
Dose form (SCDF) Oral Tablet RxCUI 374307No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) 10000 UNTRxCUI 24379515000 UNTRxCUI 31365325000 UNTRxCUI 313643 -
Dose form (SCDF) Sublingual Tablet RxCUI 1987012No current FDA listingClinical drug / strength (SCD) retinol acetate 10000 UNTRxCUI 1987013 -
Dose form (SCDF) Topical Lotion RxCUI 375961In current FDA listingsClinical drug / strength (SCD) 3330 UNT/MLRxCUI 313646
Look up RxCUI 11246 in the RxCUI Atlas →
RxNorm is the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s normalized drug vocabulary. Its concept hierarchy can include forms that are not currently marketed; the status on each branch compares that concept with current FDA listings. RxCUIs identify vocabulary concepts, not individual packages or manufacturers.
Vitamin A supply and shortage status
Whether Vitamin A is in short supply in the U.S. right now, plus any shortage history the FDA has on record. A shortage usually reflects a manufacturing or demand issue — not a safety problem with the drug.
Source: openFDA, from the FDA Drug Shortages database.
Vitamin A brand names
Vitamin A is sold under one brand name in the FDA directory — Aquasol A. A brand and its generic contain the same active ingredient; the brand name belongs to one company's product.
Who makes Vitamin A: manufacturers and labelers
One company lists Vitamin A products with the FDA. By number of product records, the largest are Henry Schein. Labelers include manufacturers and repackagers; the product in your bottle depends on which one your pharmacy stocks.
Vitamin A drug class (RxNorm)
Vitamin A belongs to the Vitamin A class.
Classified by RxNorm RxClass — the U.S. National Library of Medicine's standardized drug-classification service (Established Pharmacologic Class from the FDA, the ATC drug family from the WHO, and mechanism of action). Reference only, not medical advice.
Sources for this Vitamin A page
Core label, product, RxNorm, safety, and utilization data on this page come from the sources identified below. AI-written, editorial, and licensed sections are labeled separately.
How this page is built
HelloPharmacist combines public FDA and NLM records and does not author the underlying clinical facts. The plain-language sections are written with AI from the FDA-approved label text and reviewed by our pharmacy team before publication. Cause For Change Llc is the representative DailyMed label linked for verification and dates. This is general education, not medical advice: always talk to your doctor or pharmacist about your own medicines. How we build and review drug pages →