ADEK vitamin recommendations

I bought my first couple months' worth of ADEK (with a multivitamin included) from my surgeon's office. I'd like to find something less expensive. What do you use?

ADEK multivitamins do not have enough of what we require as DSers, and many have become deficient taking these designer bariatric vitamins. You can take a generic Centrum equivalent (take 2 per day instead of 1), and add to that dry (not oil filled) versions of A, D, E and K. This is because we malabsorb fat, which is how these vitamins are naturally absorbed. Even prescription D is dispensed in an oil filled capsule and we absorb about 20% of it, so don't fall for doctor prescriptions. You can get the dry versions over the counter online.

Just compare the bottle of that multi to what we have discovered we need:

Most DSers take at least 50,000 iu of D or more. I know some who take 200,000 iu, and no, we don't get toxicity like non wls people.

We also start with 25,000 iu of A

The same company (Biotech) makes dry versions of K and E but my levels on those are fine on their own. A great starter suggestion would be the DS starter kit from vitalady.com. It's not a designer vitamin, but a collection of several vitamins. Many will start with this kit for 90 days or until their first labs, and start customizing the regime according to lab results. It's important to get accustomed to knowing how to read them and start comparing and noticing downward trends. Never trust the nurse calling you and saying that your labs "are fine". They usually don't compare current from past results. Be proactive right out of the gate.

Val said it all, I'll put it more bluntly. ADEK's are useless for us. Worse than that, they fool you into thinking you are doing everything right and taking what you need to maintain good nutrition, when in fact they contain so little of each component to be useless for us. It's so sad that your surgeon is selling...oh, sorry, I meant providing (no, I meant selling) this to his patients, and that he himself probably doesn't realize he's giving his patients bad nutritional advice. This is how some DS'ers get into nutritional trouble, and they either the patient or the operation is blamed, when it reality it's bad information that's the culprit.

Get the separate, dry forms of at least A, D, and K. That way, you'll get the amounts you need, and also be able to adjust each as needed. When you take a combination form, you can't adjust the dose of one without affecting the doses of all the others, and that doesn't work. Follow your labs yourself (don't trust anyone else to care about this as much as you do) and adjust when you see a trend towards deficiency, BEFORE you get too low. It's much easier to stay at good levels than to raise them after they plummet.

Larra

I get A-D-E-K from Amazon all under the brand Bio-Tech. These are all "dry" vitamins which means we will absorb them. There aren't that many brands of "dry" A-D-E-K so not sure what you consider "expensive".

I would suspect that most of the vitamins you'll find in a typical pharmacy aren't in dry form so don't even bother with those. Also if it comes in a gel-cap it's oil.

These are what I get from Amazon (I have prime so shipping is free or if it's not a prime item it ships for free):

• D3-50 (50,000 units) is about $25 for 100 pills
• K1-1000 (1000 mcg) is about $16 for 100 pills
• K2 MK-7 (100 mcg) - you may not need to take this but I do to help with bone loss.
• A-25 (25,000 units) is about $9 for 100 pills
• E-400 (400 units) is about $16 for 100 pills

The D3 and K1 are what's expensive for me because I take 3 (each) per day. These vitamins are not optional either.

Your list seems reasonable to me. I'd be okay spending about $60 a month (Vitalady seems to be charging twice that).

Keep in mind that these are not the only vitamins I supplement. I have a laundry list of vitamins. I would guess I spend approximately $100 per month of vitamins and supplements (calcium, multi, devrom, zinc, copper, K2, fiber, probiotic, and I'm sure there are others I can't remember :) ).

You can take her list and source each vitamin on your own. You don't have to necessarily buy from that site. Many buy the first batch from this site for ease of use.

While I agree that multi ADEK's do not dose correctly in the long run the other inescapable fact is that it is cheaper to buy separate than to buy multi's. I do biotech from amazon although there is another company that does the D which is sometimes cheaper also available on amazon.

Nivagen is the brand. I've had no issues with them. I bounce between the two companies depending on which is cheaper.