Iron questions

Jani -

You'll be fine!  The whole vitamin thing is a little overwhelming at the beginning, but it doesn't take long for it to become habit and second nature. The 7-day pill organizers work great to keep me on track with what to take at what time.  I actually have 4 of them.  For each week I have an AM and PM box and I do two weeks at a time (cuz I'm lazy like that).  That way I only have to think about which vitamins to take when every other week .

So some general rules on what to take with what...

B12 -- The B Vitamins are a family, they work together as a team.  So its best to take them all at the same time so they are in your system together.  B12, Biotin, B-Complex and Multi-vitamin ... take them at the same time so the B's are happy.

Vitamin D -- Vitamin D and Calcium are friends and help each other work better.  But they don't have to be in your tummy at the same time, so take your D whenever you feel like it. 

Iron -- iron likes an empty, acidic tummy.  So take it at least 1 hour before or after a meal and take it with something acidic... either chewable Vitamin C or orange juice (if it doesn't make you dump). 

You'll do fine.  Once you have a schedule, it's easy to get into the groove.

Pam

Ok Pamula, I have a question for you.
I use the B-12 spray every other day.
My lab results showed a high level of B-12.  I thought it was water soluable and we didn't store it?

What's a high level?  As post-ops we want our B12 to hover around the 1000 mark... so high is fine.  If it's over 2000, then you'll want to back off a bit and adjust until you can maintain a number around 1000. 

It took me a full year of adjusting my B12 dose until I found the right frequency to maintain a good number but now I'm doing one 2500mcg sublingual tab two times a week -- whereas some people need double that every day. 

All B Vitamins are water soluble, however the body does store them for later use to a certain extent -- but for a short period of time.  B12 can keep a store for anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months - depending on the person.   Compare that to other vitamins or minerals and it's a very short window. 

Ok, thanks for the explanation.  My B12 was 1781 and for the record, my ferritin (iron) was 2.0.

Your ferritin was 2 ?!?!  Holy crap girl!  I'm surprised you can function!!!  According to vitalady we want that number to be in the range of 200-300.  Mine is at 25-ish right now and I'm working to get it up.

Yeah, it's 2....and I'm kind of upset because I had these labs drawn in early March.  I finally got them to mail them to me, and I had to call and ask if that number was low.