Worst WLS advice. EVER.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I review my full lab reports every time and review my values compared to the normal and optimal ranges and mine are always perfect. My patient portal allows me to review and compare my full results from every lab that has been pulled. I tend to be a research nut and I am a firm believer that if we are not our own medical advocate no one else will do it for us, even our doctors. I went through nursing school before I changed career paths so I know enough to be dangerous in the medical field but I am by far no expert ;) I have to wonder if some people just don?t absorb the nutrients as well as others (beyond the absorption issues that come from the various surgeries).

?perfect? doesn?t matter. What you are looking for is downward trends on any value.

Your values can be ?perfect? every draw and still be trending downward and still be in the ?perfect? range.

you need to look at every draw from the first draw to the most recently drawn, like on a spread sheet.

If a value is consistently dropping on every draw, even if still on the normal range, it is trending downward and unless it is addressed will likely continue until it is out of range.

Regarlldless of what providers say, flint stones are for children. Would you give adult vitamins to children?

Like I said above my patient portal lets me review and compare my values from every lab draw that I have ever had so that I can look for trends. They are always on point and have not had any dips at all.

keep watching.

Like I said above my patient portal lets me review and compare my values from every lab draw that I have ever had so that I can look for trends. They are always on point and have not had any dips at all.

reree you bring up a really critical issue for WLS postops so I wanted to take a minute. Our labs are many times really good for the first few months up to about two years, no matter what the name says on our vitamin bottle. Our body is using up all of our vitamin stores and they can be considerable.

When those are used up, if we aren't supplementing or not supplementing correctly/adequately, we will begin to draw our vitamins from our organs and bones as our bodies struggle to literally stay alive. The reason those of us farther out are constantly talking vitamins and labs and such is that a body can die due to malnourishment. Before that happens though we can get very sick and end up with really horrible and painful conditions (like osteoporosis for example) and even heart problems including heart attacks.

We talk abou****ching for trends because if you catch something trending downward you can fix it much easier then; if we wait until our levels are critical it is much harder to build them up. Some people in that position can't stay alive long enough to get the damage turned around. Or if they do, they may still have life-long consequences. My friend was in that category. Horribly malnourished, diagnosed, working a protocol to fix the situation, suffered a heart attack before she could make a positive impact.

So that's it in a (big) nutshell. Thanks for asking the question.

edited because I haven't had enough caffeine today and just saw you had a sleeve. You've got more wiggle room than a bypass patient but still need to be proactive. You don't have malabsorption on the level of and RnY or a DS but you also likely aren't eating enough food to get your vitamins that way regardless. I guess the bottom line is to just stay vigilant. =)

Yeah I had sleeve, I think I had mentioned in one of the responses that I know the different surgery's have different absorption issuesbutbi still do wonder if some people just still don't absorb as well as others. For me I don't only take the flintstones but I also take magnesium, calcium, and B complex. I do stay viligent though with my labs. :)

I can't help but wonder if they are doing complete nutritional labs on you. How many vials of blood do the pull for the bloodwork?

Being a VSG patient, you could essentially get your nutritional needs from food, still, so if you're eating a well balanced diet, you may not need those substandard Flintstones at all. For those of us with malabsorptive procedures, the old "Flintstones and Tums" advice is a recipe for disaster, and it take much longer to recover normal levels than it takes to watch them drop drastically. I watched my levels tank on bariatric vitamins with a specific DS dose (which is why I don't believe in those either), and my situation isn't at all unique. My surgeon had no idea what to do.

I see this weight tracker thing at the bottom of alot of people post that is a band and says how many more lbs to go kinda thing i. Where can i find it? Looked every where lok

I believe you are talking about the weight loss tickers? I don't have one - you could probably find one using the search bar.

If anyone sees this that has a ticker could you please help her out?

Hi Nicole,

1.) Click the * gear icon in the upper right hand side

2.) Click tickers

3.) Click New Ticker

4.) Follow the instructions.

Make sure you click the option to have it show on your posts and profile. See attached screen print....

Sure, Amy. I can help.

Click on the wheel up on the right hand side of the page -- a pull down list starting with "My Profile" will appear. Click on "Tickers" -- then click on "new ticker" -- and from there, it's pretty intuitive.

Hope this helps.