Calcium supplements

Hi all -

I got the okay to start taking pills instead of chewable vitamins.  Yay! 

I actually didn't mind the liquid calcium I was taking ("Tropical Oasis" brand, available from Whole Foods), but since it needs to be refrigerated I thought it would be more convenient to try some pills.  I picked up some from GNC, only to get home and read the side.  In order to get what I was getting from 1 tbs of Tropical Oasis, I have to take 6 of these pills every day.  Two days, so far, and by the time I'm done getting in all the pills with the water, I'm actually full, like I've just eaten.

Anyone have any calcium pill suggestions?  Otherwise I think I'll just go back to the Tropical Oasis.  It actually tasted good and I didn't mind taking it, as long as I remembered to while I was home.

 Hi.
I take citrical petites. I am pre-op tho and maybe I can't take them after..

Citrical Petites

just a warning about citrical petites....  They get stuck very easily (at least me).  They're smaller pills but they're very fat.  After getting 2 pills stuck I decided to dissolve them in water. 

As far as the Tropical Oasis....  I wonder if there's anything in that formula that allows your body to absorb all that calcium at once.  I thought you could only absorb 400 mg in one dose.
If this stuff allows you to absorb 1200 in one tsp I'd be all over that...

That's a great question.  My hospital specifically recommends that brand as the best one post op, but aside from that, I have no idea.

Citrical Petites here too...seems popular.

Hey there...I was taking citracel petites, I have not had any problems taking them from the moment I got home from surgery...I just got tired of swallowing them, they are a bit rounder.  So I found disolvable ones from www.bariatricAdvantage.com.  It's a great website for Bariatric Patients.  I love them and take 3 a day and it's flavored.  The citracel petites are also 3/day.

Hope that helps you out! 

~Kristina

Hopefully you don't mind me chiming in, but I wanted to clarify because I notice alot of people don't realize that the citrical petite dosage is actually 2 pills = 400 and not 1 pill = 400
citrical petite dosage is  7-8 pills a day if you have an RNY
each pill is 200 mg and you should be getting about 1500 calcium a day taking 2 pills every 2 hours and not with a multi that has iron
I would hate to see anyone suffer from bone loss years down the line :-(

I've tried just about every brand of calcium citrate out there and so far hate them all. And yes, the body cannot absorb more than 500 mg of calcium at one time so to get your full dose per day, you have to take it in 3 divided doses and not within 2 hours of iron (even multivitamin with iron because calcium and iron compete for the same receptors in the digestion and calcium wins which means you don't absorb the iron). This is the problem I had with the crystals dissolved in my drinking water because I couldn't be done with it within two hours of one of my two multivitamin doses. (Know also that tanins like in tea and coffee and dairy also competes for iron absorption and shouldn't be within two hours either). Now this is all per our nuts and physicians. YMMV and everyone should follow their own directed path.

Now having said that, when I first came on the WL scene, everyone was talking about Chewey Bites. These are small but very tasty bits of candy-like calcium, not chalky, not gritty and more like dessert. Everyone I knew was using them and loving them in several flavors. Then the company went out of business and everyone freaked. Now Bariatric Advantage has bought the recipe and is coming out with them in 13 more days. I've ordered some to see how they are. They are coming out in chocolate first and then lemon. Price works about to about the same and BA has a deal now where you can order 3, get one free. I tried that one. They cannot be any worse than any other. If it can also double as a little dessert (which my peeps say it can and does), then I'm all over it!

I purchase my calcium citrate at Costco, so they are very reasonable.   I take 3 pills a day, being careful to separate each one by at least two hours, as well as from any other pills that might make them less effective (i.e. Iron.).