Vitamins

I was taking Bari-Life Perfect Pack vitamins that my surgeon developed.  He has discontinued the pack that I used and now only has the very large vitamins and powdered vitamins.  I can't swallow the large ones and didn't like the powdered ones.  My blood work has always been good with these vitamins.

I do want to take vitamins designed for bariatric patients.  I am not sure which would be the best to take.  I've looked at Opurity, Bariatric Advantage, and Celebrate.  I don't know which would be the best or if there's another brand that would be better.  I would appreciate any help that anyone can give me.  I've called my surgeon's office and left a message for the nutritionist to call me back with her suggestion.  I haven't heard from her yet.

You can usually break large vitamins into smaller pieces with a pill splitter. I did that for all of my pills for the first few weeks and it went just fine!

Thanks for the suggestion Sparklekitty.  I thought of that, but you take 6 of the large vitamins a day, and I wouldn't want to split all of those every day.  I'd rather just switch to a different brand.

The Bariatric Advantage chewables weren't bad, kind of reminiscent of a "loose" Tums. The non-chewable vitamins from BA are cheaper, however. 

Thanks for your reply Fredbear.  Have you tried the non-chewable BA?  Are they large pills that are hard to swallow or just average size?

My surgeon recommends the Centrum Silver brand.  And I use the vitamin patches for D3/calcium and iron.

I use the ProCare Health Bariatric Once Daily Multivitamin.  They come in chewable but I think they're gross.  These are a large clear capsule.  I have no issue swallowing the large capsule, but you can open it up and stir it into a spoon of yogurt or something to take it.  

There is nothing special about bariatric vitamins. A couple of brands, in particular, are very poor quality, and you'd need 8 multis per day.

Centrum adult are more or less the standard for a complete multivitamin. You'd need 2 of those per day to reach the 200 percent of the RDA of vitamins and minerals. Lots of generic versions from CVS, etc., are equivalent, and much cheaper.

Then you'd need calcium citrate three times a day as well.

For my multi, I take Centrum vitamints.  It helps decrease the number of giant pills I'm swallowing b/c I also take 4 citracal a day for my calcium in addition to all of the other pills.

I'm new to the game, but like the Celebrate chewable multi & B12.  I ordered the Iron but haven't tried it yet.

Eventually I may try something cheaper.  What matters to me is that I take it, and I know I won't take giant horsepills, even with a splitter.  They smell & taste terrible to me.  I've tried liquid and couldn't keep up with those either because of the aftertaste.   For some reason the Celebrate works for me taste-wise.