What's the worse that can happen?

I don't plan on stop taking my vitamins, but curious to know what's the worse that can happen? I hate separating pills each week and trying to find deals on them. I find walgreens to be helpful with buy one get one half off or free plus I can use rewards. There's just days where I wish I didn't have so many medications to take = 12. I have to use the 4 slot 7 day a week pill holder to keep it all figured out.

missing day or two now and then isn't a problem. But stopping them completely or missing too many days can cause deficiencies over time.

If you stop taking your daily vitamins first you'll get depressed and lethargic from lack of vitamin b s .

Your skin will look flabby and old from lack of daily vitamin C and you will be very vulnerable to infections like Covid 19.

longer term iron deficiency/ chronic anemia is a HUGE sickener .

There's a REASON the successful long term posters here succeed - we follow the guidelines we agreed to before our life changing surgeries . A blood test every six months and daily vitamins are VITAL ! ((())) hugs

I get my blood tested every year, not every six months. I haven't lost the weight I needed, but my labs are all normal. It's all so frustrating, but I rather be frustrated then depressed and flabby skin. Thanks for the feedback.

It mostly gets down to what your labs say that you need - what you are advised by your surgeon at surgery time is just a baseline, and often is based upon what bypass requirements are, as that is what most surgeons are most familiar with. The VSG is the most forgiving of the major WLS procedures, but you can still get into trouble if you ignore what you need. We don't typically need the B12 and lots of extra iron and calcium that a bypass person may need because of their malabsorption, but we may need some - it's a big YMMV thing. For a while I was on double dose of iron when recovering from an internal bleed, but am now only taking it a couple times a week, and probably don't even need that (we'll see on the next lab pull.) A bypass patient likely would have needed iron infusions to recover from that.

With a VSG, it's mostly down to your diet, and any individual quirks your body has, rather than the surgery itself; my wife needs to supplement potassium, not because of her WLS but because that is just how she is (and was before WLS.)

The first year or two, when we aren't eating all that much, and mostly protein for what we do eat, we need extra supplements to make up for what we are not eating. Over time with the VSG, we can, in principle, get along with getting all of our required nutrition from food, to a similar extent that a normal person can. This depends heavily on how good your diet is, and whether one can adjust their tastes and preferences to cater to your body's needs - we don't eat fish, (not gonna happen) so I do take a fish oil supplement to cover some of that. OTOH, I do eat a lot of fruits and veg (target is 10 servings per day which I rarely hit, but do consistently get 7-8) so along with the variety of meats and whole grains, it is questionable (between me and the doc) as to whether I really need the multivitamin (have cut it back to one every other day, will see what happens) but I like to keep something in there to cover the things that I may not be getting elsewhere, and aren't routinely measured in the labs - call it insurance.

Being a year out from surgery, it isn't unreasonable for you to start investigating this, but let your labs be your guide, along with your overall feeling of vitality. It's not something to just stop overnight, but to make adjustments as you get feedback on what you really need. Also be aware of how our requirements change as we age, so that is something to work out with your PCP on general age related recommendations, or with an RD if you have one through your program.

It?s really pretty simple ( and I?m very successful nine years post ? ) .

Get a blood test every six months . Ideally get your original bariatric surgeons to explain the results- they can also simultaneously document issues you may be having that justify insurance covered excess skin removal surgeries .

There are vitamin deficiencies that are very hard to recover from ( like anemia from lack of iron ) .

I personally choose to chew a tasty gummy supplement rather than taking nothing when I?m feeling rebellious or forgetful ( I actually keep them in my car door so I don?t forget :)

Makes me feel much more energetic and healthy when I take my vites - and they taste good - like candy !

My current favorite is Flinstones sour gummy bears or Flintstones gummy beans ( a new product ) . Though bariatrically they may not be absolutely ideal I've found over the years that they work very well provided I occasionally supplement with ( non elemental because we don't absorb that )complex iron.

The worst could Be dying, if you let it get that far, and depending on what is deficient. Before that though, you could be tired, lethargic, irregular heartbeat, inability to fight off infections, cause permanent nerve damage and tingling of extremities, be higher risk for dementia and other negative neuro conditions. Lots of bad stuff and once you are deficient, It's harder to reverse course - especially with some thing like ferritin.

the time to question whether you wanted to deal with taking all the appropriate supplements was presurgery. If you feel like you have to take too many pills now, you definitely don't want to add more because you are having other medical issues due to sufficiency complications.

Search on the board and see the different mechanisms people are using, maybe there is an option that you can work with.

I take 2 centrum silver a day; two proferrin iron, 3 celebrate calcium chews a day (includes D), sublingual b 2-3 times a week. It's a mix that works for me. Find what works for you and stick to it!

For me - there are worse things than dying. Experiencing nerve damage, and knowing that I could have prevented that - is my fear.

Chronically low B12 or B1 can cause nerve damage. Permanent nerve damage. Including the brain. nope.

Jen, looks like you take your vitamins. But, does your B sublingual has B6? I know Centrum has it, and 2 centrum has more than 100 B6.

At one time I took multi and an additional B-complex. After a few years, I asked my doc to test my B6. (they often don't do that). My B6 was dangerously high and it took me 2-3 years to bring it down.

B6 is water soluble, and we can absorb B's rather well. But B6 and B12 are different. B6 can get easily absorbed, but it takes time to get rid of it once you absorb it.

High B6 can cause as much damage as low B12 - nerve damage.

If you, or anyone else take too much B6 day after day, please make sure you get tested for B6 regularly.

There is a B-complex (not sublingual) that doesn't have B6.

Oh that's good to know! I just checked and my sublingual is only b-12. If I switch from this one, I will make sure to double check that though. Thank you Hala!