When to start our vitamins?

I see this question a lot and it seems many docs have different recommendations.  I thought I’d share what the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery says on the matter.

They recommend starting your multi and your iron as soon as you come home from the hospital.

They say you CAN wait up to one month to start your calcium.  Not that you have to, just that you can.  Personally, I would start it sooner than that but if it feels overwhelming to get everything in, hold off a bit.

They also say you can wait up to three months to start B12, which really seems like a long time to me, but that’s what they say.  Not that you have to wait that long, but you can.  Personally, I would make sure I had my B12 level checked pre op before I decided to wait that long and if I really didn’t want to start a sublingual ‘til three months out, I think I’d ask my doc for a B12 shot at my first follow up appt.

The reason we can wait on some things is that we store some things in our bodies for a while.  But some things we don’t, we really need every day.  Missing them for a couple days is no big deal, and you’re not gonna develop some terrible nutritional deficiency and die if you get no vitamins at all for two weeks.  But getting vitamins as soon as possible can help you  heal.  And if you rely on what you have stored up, then you have nothing to fall back on later if you need it.

The ASMBS doesn’t address when to start things like D3 or biotin if you’re going to take those.  Personally, I’d start them as soon as I felt up to it and make the D3 a priority if I was deficient at all at the time of surgery.  But I wouldn’t stress about waiting a week or two if I needed to.

Kelly

thanks Kelly. I ordered from vitalady early this week, so my vitamins should be coming next week.  Good thing, cause these celebrate vitamins are WAAAAAY too sweet for me, and I was B1 and D deficient pre-op.

They were too sweet for me after surgery, too.  Made me gag.

**Like**

I just got an email from my surgeon's dietitian letting me know she'd done her research and was now starting her patients of with D3 right out of the shoot and looking at vitamin A as well.

--gina
 

Sounds like a very good dietician.  There may be a few patients that don't need D3 right away but I bet most do.  I've looked and lots of people's, including those that have not had WLS, and never seen anyone that did not take a supplement that had good levels.  Good grief, my mother, who has not had WLS, had a level of 15!  My partner, who eats a decent amount of food that has vitamin D in it, was at 37.  My sister was at 41.

Kelly

Some program (including mine) have you do a full panel of labs as a pre-op. I think that's a very good idea. It makes it a lot easier to judge when you get labs later as to what your normal is and if various numbers are in range but trending down. Plus, if you have deficiencies, you can start working on them pre-op and not wait until your 1 year labs to find out you've been deficient in something all along.

That is an excellent idea.  I don't know why not all providers do it.  But if yours doesn't you can also request it.  It just never occurred to me before surgery, but it would not.

We had a full panel before but didn't get the results until our 1st appt after surgery.  We don't do a 3 month, and 6 month is limited.  I'm assuming we will have a full panel at 12 months.

We were to start our vits with full liquids, so about a week out.

It seems scary to me not to do a full panel at six months.  So much could be too low by one year.  I actually do a full panel every six months and I'm more than two years out.  They usually do a full panel every three months during the first year, though.

Kelly