Vitamin Deficiencies

If a DS patient was not taking their vitamins how long would it take for deficiencies to manifest in lab work? Please don't assume and be nice.

It's a YMMV thing. 

Where were the numbers when they started?  How long has it been?  How little do they absorb through food?  That kind of thing.

But I'd never consider going over six months without labs. 

And I'd be VERY worried about the B vitamins...all KINDS of weird **** happens when we get low on those.

(And I'm about to find out how long it takes with Vit D...just to make a new doctor happy.)

Sure...a month or so without sufficient Vit D SHOULD show up on my labs--which I had done yesterday and I should have a copy later today.

If she's right, then I've learned something.  If I'm right, she's learned something.  And my surgeon said it wouldn't hurt.

What kind of stuff happens when you are low on Vitamin B?

Depends on WHICH B vitamins...here's a list:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_vitamins#B_vitamin_deficiency

Hrmmm. I don't know exactly, but it depends.

Any pre-op deficiencies will show up right away. I was very low on D pre-op, but post op I was taking such a heavy suppliment of D post-op that it actually fixed the problem despite the malabsorbtion. So if you're anemic pre-op, or are borderline on some vitamins it would probably show in the first 4 months. 

I'd imagine it may take few months for some other deficiencies to show up, because the body does have a reserve "stash" so to speak. Once your reserves are depleted the tests will show a downward slide.

It varies. My vitamin A was midrange preop and was bottom end of normal at three month labs (mid 20s I think, down from mid 40s or thereabouts). I started on 100K IU of what I thought was good dry vitamin A from a Vitamin Shoppe. At 6 months my A was 19 and everyone, self included, was terrified of lots of stuff. Not just night blindness, but of avant garde things that might be happening because I wasn't getting better A on that much supplementation.

So I switched to Vitalady's Tender dry A palmitate and all got fixed.

Other things, like my iron and zinc, dropped slowly over time despite supplmentation.

So, it's almost impossible to give any time parameters.

Have you gotten actual copies of your lab results yet?

I will be off work the week after Thanksgiving and I am going medical records to get them myself.  I will let you know how it goes.

I had trouble in the beginning getting down all the big pills so I was worried abuot deficiencies too and my Dr said the first deficiency to present would be the B vitamins with tingling in my hands and I did get that at times so I am passing on that info