Hi everyone - I'm hoping some of our medical folks here (Dyann, Michelle, others maybe?) can answer a couple of questions I have about vitamins. In other threads I've seen people post the list of vitamins that their surgeon recommends, and have been surprised that some people are just taking a couple of multivitamins and nothing else. My surgeon says that each day I should be taking two chewable multivitamins with 18mg iron, (I take Centrum Complete); 500+mg calcium citrate (Citracal chewables are yummy!); a cod liver oil pill, and two sublingual B-12 tabs. He says the calcium and multivitamins cannot be taken within two hours of each other because calcium and iron taken together negatively impact the body's ability to absorb them. Here are my questions:
1. First off, the cod liver oil pill is just KILLING me. These things are huge, and whenever I take them, I get sick to my stomach. Sometimes the interaction of the cod liver oil with my pouch contents -- even if my pouch only contains the usual digestive fluid -- makes me vomit. (It's the most DISGUSTING experience ever -- imagine you despise fish, which I do, and are hacking up fish-scale-flavored slime...makes me want to barf just describing it.) Some people here don't seem to be taking cod liver oil pills, so I'm wondering if they're really necessary. I mean, optimally I'm sure it's a good idea, but what happens over the long term if I stop taking them? What might be the impact to my health? Even if I don't vomit, they always give me a fishy burp-up which is just nasty, and I'd love to get rid of them!
2. I've looked online at bariatric vitamins, in particular at those offered by BariatricEating.com, and they seem to have some good options, but the first question that occurred to me in looking at the formulas of some of their vitamins is what about the calcium vs. iron issue? A few of their vites include both calcium AND iron in the same pill, which, according to my surgeon, is not good. Per his recommendation, I'm taking calcium citrate, as opposed to calcium carbonate; is the calcium in those bariatric combo vitamins actually carbonate instead? He told me carbonate isn't well-absorbed so that's why he recommends citrate. Do y'all have any idea what the difference is in bariatric vitamins that have both calcium and iron and how that's different than my current regimen?
3. For people who actually take bariatric formula vitamins, how much do you take? Just what the label says? How have your labs been? If I decide to go this route, is there anything I should know?
Thanks in advance for any info or recommendatins - I'm really worried about the vitamin issue, especially the cod liver oil thing since it makes me so ill, but I don't want to become vitamin-deficient.
Questions about vitamins
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