Calcium Citrate

Hi, I'll start by saying that I am new to this site.

I am one week post-op from the sleeve gastrectomy and all is going well so far, I've been following the diet to the letter, taking all the necessary vitamins and medications, and seem to be healing up quite nicely. The only problem I do have is with the chewable calcium citrate, I cannot tolerate it, the texture, the taste, the grittiness makes me physically sick, I have gagged/thrown up several times from it and once I throw up it becomes hard for me to eat again for several hours (I have no problem with the chewable multi's or the sublingual b-12). They are from Celebrate Vitamins.

My questions are, has anyone else experienced this? And I found Citrical makes a calcium cirtate PETITE, they're smaller and can be absorbed with or without food(I would need to take 2 of them 3x a day), I'm wondering if anyone has tried these as an alternative to the chewables? And if it would be okay to attempt them. I've left multiple messages with my nutritionist and surgeon with no call back yet. My thoughts are that it can't be healthy for me to continue taking something that I can't tolerate and makes me sick/unable to eat. 

Well, the ASMBS says VSG folks need 1500 mg calcium citrate a day, so that would mean taking two of the petites four times a day, not three times a day.  Each one has 200 mg, so taking two of them four times a day would give you a total of 1600 mg.

But anyway, those are an acceptable alternative to chewables.  The ASMBS says we do not need chewable vitamins.

You might also want to try Upcal D, which is a powder.  One serving of it is 500 mg and it has no taste.  You can put it in any drink or in something like yogurt or pudding.

I had the same experience with the calcium and have purchased every brand available.

I finally ordered the Carmel and Chocolate peanut butter chews from Bariatric Advantage (500mg each) so I only have to take four a day. One disadvantage is that they have some sugar alcohol which bothers some people. 

You might want to check with your dietician though as I was discouraged from taking them for the first six weeks.

The bariatric advantage ones are pretty good! Most surgeons offices or nutritionists should have samples available. They are soft chews more like a starburst and taste pretty good. Calcet creamy bites is another option (600mg each) but they are 35 calories and have some sugar. You can find them on Facebook and request a sample - they are really generous. 

Celebrate has three flavors of the chewable calcium citrate. Which did you try? Two of them are yucky, but the orange burst is very tasty.