1 month Post RNY blood work questions

I just got the letter from my Bariatric center with the results from my one month checkup and it has the following comments...

Vitamin B12 - Too High

Iron - Too Low

Magnesium - Too High

I get the low Iron, I wasn't taking a good quality chewable that first month. I've upped my game and I'm doing a better job of making sure I'm not taking it with dairy (which is in most of my breakfast meals).

The B12 is weird because I had only taken it the week before the blood work, missing it the first three weeks post surgery. I've been taking 5000 units twice a week. The notation suggested taking 1000 units twice a week. Think I can just cut my current pills? What's the danger of being high in B12?

Magnesium - the suggestion is to decrease intake of foods high in magnesium. The only thing I'm eating regularly that is on their list is yogurt, although they list milk and I also eat a lot of cottage cheese. What's the risk in having high magnesium? The blood work result in my paper work is just above the "normal" range...

Thoughts?

(I did call the office and leave a message)

Like you said...A better absorbable iron would be one thing. You can move to (if you haven't yet) tuna, shrimp, beef, and spinach. The tuna mix with light mayo, salt and pepper, celery (chopped very very thinly...Not stringy). The beef should be strips of a lean cuts of beef. You know the drill by now. As you introduce new stuff to your pouch (at home) you say: "Now pouch I am giving you something new. Please tell me if you like it or not". So say it is beef strips, you eat maybe 1/2 an oz...Chewed well. You let it go into your pouch and wait...Do not pass go, do not collect $200. About 5 to 10 minutes. Your pouch will let you know if it likes it or not. If nothing seems wrong down there, try some more, very slowly in very small amounts. Brian PS You may want to get a small Wendy's Chili...No cheese or onion or cracker. Just a 1/2 spoonful and see if your pouch can handle it. Good eats...

Thanks for the ideas and input! I am currently eating a lot of seafood (tuna mostly but also shrimp and white fish), lean venison, and lean chicken (home raised so slow grown plus active makes them pretty lean). So far my pouch has been very forgiving, although this past weekend it was pretty moody.

Just a quick warning. Pork, venison, and bear are the toughest meats to digest. They may never sit well with your pouch...

I guess I've been lucky so far! When cooking at home, venison is the only red meat I have. Maybe I've developed some venison friendly gut flora after a lifetime of eating it? I have only had it ground since my surgery so that might be helping. The only pork I've had is bacon, and bear isn't on the menu here in Ohio ;-)

Most of my protein is coming from seafood. I have fish almost every day now, tuna or canned salmon for lunch. It seems like the least expensive protein source with the best calorie to protein ratio.

It's very common to need iron pills separate from your multivitamin, so it's smart to add an additional iron pill to your vitamins if you're not taking one already. Make sure you take it at least two hours before or after your calcium supplements, if you're taking additional calcium.

B12 is a water-soluble vitamin, so if you're taking too much it should just pass through your urine. You should be just fine to cut back on your supplementation, but check with your doctor on that.

high B12 is fairly common in obese people, from what I've read. Once you've had surgery and are taking supplements for it, high B12 isn't necessarily bad. A lot of people on here like theirs at 1000 or higher, because they feel better. Mine kept going up and up every time I went in for labs. They didn't suggest cutting back a bit on it until it went over 2000. I didn't get the sense that they told me that because it was dangerous, it was more that the pills were clearly working, and it wasn't necessary for it to be that high.

well never mind. I just read another article that said high B12 levels can occur with obesity, but it's not that common.

What are the actual numbers? Too high or too low means nothing.

Did you have an actual ferritin test, or just iron? Ferritin is the most significant iron number.

One month is pretty meaningless for most vitamins, and especially for iron. Taking no iron, or lots of extra iron for a month really won't make the needle move much. B12 on the other hand can go up or down a lot in one month.

I've been trying to access the actual results. I changed jobs, the new place uses the same hosting provider, so of course now my accounts are locking when I try to access them. As I'm a SME in HIPAA you'd think I'd be able to solve this security glitch but meh... still working it out.

I viewed them when the first came back and noticed the higher B12 and Magnesium but didn't note the actual number. I just noticed that they were not significantly outside of the normal range.