Vitamins

Wanted to ask what vitamin brand is everyone taking? Having a hard time finding one that isn't making me nauseated. Doesn't matter whether take morning, lunch or supper. With or without food.

I see you are a new post op. Are you hydrating enough (64oz minimum daily)? Dehydration causes nausea and can hit you hard and fast.

If you're trying to stomach chewables, try pills instead (just take one at a time, nice and slow).

My next concern is that you elude to only needing one vitamin where you need way more than that. If you've not found it yet, check out vitalady.com for the suggest DS vitamins list. It's not a particular brand, it's a collection of the common vitamins that DSers need, and you can purchase them on your own and comparison shop (but she does make it darned convenient in personalized daily packets). I suggest you start with these and go for six months, then adjust what you take by what your labs reveal.

I'm getting between 50-64 oz of liquids per day. It's really hard to get it all in between work, not being able to drink 30 before/during/after meals. Usually takes me the full 30 minutes to eat. 4oz is still the most I can normally drink in 15 minutes. As far as pills can't start that till after day 30 which is next week. Found a brand bariatric fusion adek take 4 a day plus viactiv which meets requirements per nutrionist but felt fine till I took them yesterday morning. Last night and this morning I held my nose which helped lol. But it worked. Finding different proteins fill me up more than others. Thanks for the information.

64 oz is your minimum need (I accomplish this before lunchtime), so keep a cup in your hands at all times. I know it's a full time job all by itself, but your body will vehemently revolt if you don't give it what it needs. Find something that "doesn't suck". I got into weird things like green koolaid and hawaiian punch. I'd not had them since I was a child, but they made my hydration happen (sweetened with splenda, or the hawaiian punch was a water bottle packet sprinkled in a 64oz cup).

Bariatric ADEK is so overpriced, and not enough of what you even need. You can get the dry pills and need one each, and they are each so tiny...the size of a Benedryl. You'll learn soon enough that nutritionists aren't up in their knowledge of what a DSer really needs, either. They are afraid to suggest the levels of D that we take daily (50,000iu, but some take as much as 200,000 iu daily) and seem to lump DSers in with RNY, which leaves us malnourished.

Correct about the 64oz but how long did it take you to get to that point after surgery? I'm still only 3 1/2 weeks out.

I was getting 64oz in the day my IV was removed from my arm. My surgeon put the fear of God in me and I sure as heck wasnt going to wind up in the ER and have her bring the hammer down on me. She was tough! Protein and vitamins requirements you can work up to, but your body dehydrates so fast, that it's your very first goal each and every day. I pretty much had a cup in my hands or next to me at all times, day and night. I made up drinking games, and took a sip before and after I did anything, from changing the channel on the TV, getting out of the chair, getting in the chair, going to the kitchen, whatever. I even took a sip when someone cussed...whatever it took.

Valerie, thank you so much for your help. Did your Dr office also require no drinking for 30 before and after? Not sure it matters but I had the bilopancreatic deudonal switch with double anastomosis.

LOL I just answered this to you further down the thread!

No, my surgeon actually got that one, and the straws, but I'm going to tell ya, 99% of the surgeons and nutritionists out there give us substandard information when it comes to nutrition. We figured this out over a decade ago and started sharing what we learn between each other because the medical teams didn't bother to keep up even when we shared with them.

My surgeon's official nutritionist wrote a book about living with WLS and included the DS and actually put "in writing" that we need only an extra 400iu of D when I was taking and 50,000iu daily. My levels spiraled downward on that initial recommendation and that's when I took matters into my own hands.

Your surgeon is good at cutting. The nutritionist is no better than google, but we can do better.

You're only a little over a month post-op. You should be slowly adding vitamins. As Val mentioned hydration is the most important and dehydration can definitely lead to nausea.

Check out Vitalady's DS regime because, again as Val pointed out, there is a laundry list of vitamins for DSers (and will need to be adjusted regularly based on lab results). I get most of my vitamins from Amazon. The best brand of vitamins for DSers is Biotech. As a DSer you need dry vitamins - ADEK's are typically oil-based but because DSers malabsorb oil, you need dry vitamins (water soluble). In my experience Biotech offers the most choices in the amounts we need.

If you're looking for a multi vitamin, I take Centrum Silver (two per day in addition to all my other supplements).

Don't need to wait 30 before and after, thats a RNY rule. Bariatric vitamins are overpriced and not sufficient.