Thank you all so much for what you have taught me. I went to a group meeting tonight thru my hospital for the first time. And we had an open talk night. Well some pre ops were asking about vits and those of us that were post ops were answering what we could. Also there was a nurse from the office and the dietitian. Someone asked about calcium and the nurse said just take tums it is fine. I was like NO it is not. Not the right kind of vit for us RNYers. She was like YES it is. The dietican said they need citrate are those citrate? She says I dont know but thats what I tell people who ask me what to take to take. then we moved on to some other vitamin and she was wrong again. SO I said according to the ASMB you need to take this and this in these amounts. The dietitian said to me wow you know what that is? You have done your work. I said I had some really smart ladies teach me about this. He said I see you doing really great in this as you are not thinking this is the magic pill but are working at it in every aspect. 

The nurse then goes well each surgeon is different so yours must have different rules. And keep saying this all night long whenever I answered something. I said to her ummm you work for my surgeon.  

So I again send a HUGE than you for passing on your knowledge to me and the others here. 

I second that!

At my support meeting last night the Nut told people that they would stretch their pouch if they drank carbonated beverages...

I need to find a support group.  They sound great and I need that so badly right now.

By the way, I take citrate.  Still hard to get it down--big pill--but I take it.  Good for you for standing up for yourself and for all of us.  Thanks.

Oh, you did such a good job!  That nurse should not be giving anyone advice about vitamins, obviously!  And it's super scary that the dietician was not correcting her.

When it comes to vitamins, it bugs me when people say well, different surgeons have different rules.  That is true, different surgeons have different recommendations, but your ability (or inability) to absorb calcium carbonate does not change depending on who your surgeon is. I mean, maybe I'd like to take Viactiv because they're easy to find and cheap and yummy.  If I switched to a surgeon that said they were fine, do you think I'd suddenly begin absorbing calcium carbonate?  I don't think so.