Vitamin regimine after surgery.

Hello all, new here. Love it. Should be getting VSG in a month or so. Can anyone give me some tips on what the vitamin and other supplement regimen is after VSG? What is/are good vitamins? Other stuff?

Thanks

John.

The ASMBS recommends getting 200% RDA of all vitamins and minerals. Some people use bariatric-specific vitamins, others have good luck with vitamin patches. Many of us, myself included, just take a double dose of a regular old multivitamin-- I use the Walgreen's version of Centrum.

You'll also likely need to take additional calcium and iron. Look for calcium citrate, which you can get in pill and chew form (though chews do have calories and carbs).

Iron is especially important since many WLS patients tend towards anemia. You'll have regular blood work done after surgery, which will let you keep an eye on your levels and you can adjust your regimen as needed.

Thank you so much. I am so excited to do this.

If you want some good pre-op reading, snag a copy of "weight loss surgery for dummies." It's great resource, I definitely recommend it!

In addition to Julie's excellent reply, you'll want to have/need to have pre-op lab work that will help you determine where you're deficient. Most of us are lacking in vitamin D, so that would need to be additionally.

My surgical team wanted me to take bariatric vitamins for at least 3 months. Now that I am past the 3 month mark I am allowed to take 2 multi vitamins. The reason for the bariatric vitamins is that they are usually chewable with no sugar. Hence easier on your stomach as it is healing and adjusting to its new shape.

The bariatric vitamins that I took post-op definitely had sugar in them - in the form of fructose. Very annoying.

The Purity Bypass & Sleeve Optimized Multivitamin Multi-mineral supplement do have sucrose and Sucralose , but at one tablet a day with 10 carbohydrates I was not too worried about the impact on my blood sugar. My program recommended BariatricFusion however it required more pills to get the same amount of supplements and was supposed to be taken 2 times day versus once a day. Since I have enough trouble remembering to take my pills once a day I did not want to complicate things with 2 times per day. Besides they would have cost more since the single bottle costs about the same but then you have order more because you use them up sooner.

At this point I have been cleared to return to normal multivitamins but to make sure that I am getting enough which may mean I will have to take 2 pills instead of just one.

Good luck.