vitamins etc

 Question for anyone who knows .. and please dont get pissy with me  me for what im gonna say..

I so far have not taken any vitamins..( well very rarely do it)  i am 4 months out.. just had my 3month follow up appt with the doc ( he had to reschedule on me once) all my blood levels where fine.. i specifically asked him how all my levels were doing, and i mean all of them.. he said they were totally fine.. they think i am taking my vitamins.. I know i know we are told we have to take them.. but i am not one for pills and i told them this from the very beginning.. I know they have liquid stuff out there . but i mean I just aint one for taking something every day.. ( hence why my daughters a pill baby prolly lol ) anyways.. i just wanted to know what if my levels are fine do i really have to take the vitamins?  I am trying to keep my levels up via food.. I make sure foods are ri*****ertain vitamins,protien etc.  Has anyone else NOT taken the vitamins and if so what were the concequences etc.. 

Your levels may be fine now but you are probably still using what your body stored before surgery. With part of our intestines bypassed we no longer absorb certain nutrients. If they do get absorbed futher down the track it is not at the same levels.
My levels were always very good until I was 2-3 years out of surgery.
With this surgery we make a lifelong commitment to taking supplements for our overall good health. So whether you take a pill, a chewable or a liquid find one you can tolerate and take it.
Take a multi twice a day, sublingual B-12 under your tongue once per day (or a shot once per month) and calcium for your bones twice a day.

Linda

I know where you are coming from BUT I also know that it really is important to take them. On the main board every so often there is a woman who post's about what happened to her due to the fact that she didn't want to take them and she was hospitalized for a LONG time and had to relearn everything because her body was breaking down. Now she is on LARGE doses of meds everyday just to stay alive.

 if its the one I am thinking about she also has brain damage from this too... 

Your levels are fine now because you are still using your body's stores of vitamins and nutrients. Your body will leach calcium from your bones to get what it needs, and you may never know until you break a bone in a simple fall. It may be a year before you start to have deficiets show up on your blood work - but they will come. Once you are in a hole, it's very hard to dig your way out. You need to be supplmenting NOW to ensure that this doesn't happen. Otherwise, you will definitely be having serious problems very soon.
What part of this message did you not understand when you were going through assessment? Not wanting to swallow pills is no excuse, get a good chewable multi-vitamin that has lots of iron, chewable calcium + D, and dissolving strips for B12, that will at least be a start.

I want to be really warm and supportive here but I can't.

You are playing Russian Roulette with your own health.  Some of the neurological effects of nutritional deficiencies are IRREVERSIBLE once they happen.

If you don't love yourself enough to take care of yourself, please do it for the people who love you and will wind up taking care of you when you can't take care of yourself.

I was told that we have enough stored vitamins and nutrients to last up to 1,000 days (some of them) and that is why people are having deficiencies show up after 2 - 3 years.  If you use up your stores you are going to come crashing down and it takes time to build them back up.  Someone mentioned russian roulette, but it's not really - with russion roulette at least you have a chance of not shooting yourself.. You don't if you keep this up.

Your choice though...

Laura

You'll do what you like, i guess, and suffer the consequences. or not.

Your body can store some vitamins (A, D, E and K, are stored in fat). Calcium is stored in the bones. You won't really know you're deficient in that until you break something and it doesnt heal. You should have a baseline bone scan to see how your bones are doing now, and how things progress as you get older.

Yes, you do need the vitamins. Yes, you will feel fine without them for a certain period of time (everyone is individual). No, you will not continue to feel fine if you don't take them.

My question is this, why did you have the surgery if you didnt plan on being compliant with the requirements?

just one more question. Did you specifically ask him how your vitamin levels were?

also, you said "i'm not one for pills". (i'm not either, its a daily struggle for me to remember)

Prior to this surgery, i would have said "i'm not one for eating well". That's changed, why can't the pill thing change?

I was back at my clinic for my 1st post op yesterday and the surgeon gave me the go-ahead to start my multi-vitamin and asked me to take the sub-lingual B12. I asked why I would need the B12 if my levels are fine based on my blood work. He said by the time the blood work shows you need it, it can be too late to start.
I just now came back from my GP and he has told me to cut out my asthma pill, and drop one of my high blood pressure pills which was great news.
Let me ask you, if you didn't have surgery and needed pills for high blood pressure or diabetes or asthma, would you have taken those?
I think of taking vitamins as much better than taking meds that have to be processed by my liver,
here's hoping you read these responses and get back on track...
jackie