Question:
What multi-vitamins do you use?

I was told to take chewable vitamins after surgery. I got overwhelmed at the choices when at Walmart today.    — 120wannabe (posted on April 11, 2009)

April 10, 2009
You should take an adult multi vitamin with iron chewable. I took Centrum early PO but I am sure there are far cheaper brands at Wally World. Watch the main board because there is a girl named Andrea U that is very knowledgeable about vitamins and minerals. She will post at least once a week about good and bad choices.
   — ChristineB

April 11, 2009
I use Flintstone's. If you read, it's for adults too.
   — Bootsee01

April 11, 2009
I use Viactive multivitamins, 2 a day and take an iron pill with it. My doc told me to try them because I can't stand the taste of flintstones. They are chocolate flavored and have the same amount of vitamins as 2 flintstones.
   — Dawn A.

April 11, 2009
I use Bariatric Advantage supplements. They are very cost friendly. I purchase mine from my surgeon's office, but you can also find them online at the Bariatric Advantage website.
   — Sherri_tx

April 12, 2009
I really like Nutrilite: http://lsmith97.qhealthbeauty.com/
   — smith2la

April 12, 2009
Bariatric Fusion is awesome! Two flavors as well.
   — shearosie

April 13, 2009
I use Nature-made liqui-caps. They have no funky taste, and they are well absorbed. Plus if you collect points, you will get a $7.00 coupon every so often, and alot of stores offer buy one get one free (so watch your weekly adds)! So, you get two bottles for about $4.00, great deal!
   — SkinnyBird

April 13, 2009
After taking 2X Centrum ADULT chewables for years...I SLOWLY realized they didn't have the proper forms of the fat soluble vitamins for RNYers. ...I became malnourished and very low or totally deficient in several vitamins as well as having Iron Deficiency Anemia...I was chewing TWO centrum and taking TWO chewable iron with Vit C...and calcium citrate with Vit D3 and B-12 sublinguals...I was not very good at taking it all daily, I admit, but I didn't go more than a few days without though and I was eating very healthy and well by 4 years PO...Yet at 4 years PO, I became anemic (shows up in your CBC's) and no special tests needed and when I asked about my other vitamins, found out that no one had done specific vitamin labs in the entire time pre op and post op RNY surgery!!! Some are covered in the basic labs, but not all! (So Now when I have labs, they take about 20 tubes of blood and not just 3!) I asked my doc to run them all and we found out I was deficient in magnesium, iron, Vit's A and E, selenium and low in D and zinc...I was hyper-parathyroid (calcium related defs) and I had GAINED 10 pounds...and when I went on a diet to try to lose the ten pounds I became hypothyroid...Oh YAY for me! I was in bad shape...Doctor ordered bed rest two months trying to avoid a heart attack from low oxygen in my blood from anemia and my magnesium defs as well...So...It took me 6 months to get everything under control and into normal ranges...4 months to lose my 10 pounds while trying to avoid a rapid heart rate or any stress...It was a scary time. I had to take all my regular supplements as well as all my defs and lows ( zinc, dry Vit A, D and E...magnesium, iron and extra vit C...extra of all the B Vitamins...Omega 3's for my heart)...ALL the individual vitamins I was deficient in! Then I had to get tested often to see how well I was doing in getting the defs under control...Since then, I have switched to Bariatric Advantage for the RIGHT forms and doses for RNY and Chewable Carbonyl Iron from Vitalady or whereever you can find it! I will ONLY chew my vitamins ever...No hard tablets that might not dissovle...I chose BA multi-vits because after all my research to get better again, these are the closest thing I can find to perfect or rather "best" for the RNY body. But you still have to take the other main supplements! So in addition to the multivitamins, you still take B-12 sublingual daily, as well as calcium citrate with Vit D3, 2-4 times a day and Iron (all hours separate from each other...and get labs every year (I go every 6 months until I can find the right doses of my personal supps for my personal labs for prevention and til I have good labs regularly for a two years straight) I get all my vitamins tested...20 tubes or more of blood to insure my vitamins are working...Otherwise take what you want...Just get labs to make sure you are not slowly losing your bodies storage of vitamin levels (LOOK AT YOUR LABS PERSONALLY, Are they testing for all the vitamins on your vitamin bottle?)...It's really slow to drop the first 3 years and then when you get low/but normals (which your doc won't even mention!) it drops so fast off the charts you don't even know what the heck hit you because it's too late a year later when you get your next labs! Then it can take months to raise some levels if there is not already permanent damage from some defs...and many doc don't even RUN ALL THE TESTS!!!...People do not get the whole malabsorption thingie...They LOVE how they lose the weight and forget that malabsorption is not only calories and fats but NUTRITIENTS as well and long term po, it catches up...75 % of all RNYers experience vit defs by year 5 even if they ARE taking vitamins REGULARLY! They usually learn from the symptoms that have grown increasingly worse and even irreversible, such as brain damage and crumbling teeth, that do NOT grow back...It would shock me if you could find ONE 5 year PO who will recommend you chew kids multivitamins or take your vitamin taking casually and who get labs yearly...New post ops do not GET IT.... YET! Other than RNYers also DO NOT GET IT! I TOTALLY get it... NOW! I was 4 years post op telling people I was fine, fine, fine taking 2 Adult chewables when I remembered! At 5 years...You won't hear me saying that ever again! More importantly than vitamins are yearly labs...Just remember, it takes a while to deplete the bodies vitamin stores and once one starts it can set off a chain reaction, throwing EVERYTHING out of balance...You know what's even more scary? I was THAT sick and the symptoms were so mild and slow or random that I didn't even think they were symptoms of anything but getting older and winter blah! And I ignored some that were just weird or I didn't think were serious. It was when I started taking supps of all my vit defs that it felt like someone turned on the lights and all my symptoms started to fade and I felt alive again! I had no idea how bad I actually felt because I am such a happy, bouncy kinda person...and it takes a lot to bring me down...I just thought I was feeling "lazy" in my older age! ...That was the word I used to tell my doc how I was feeling...After she saw my labs, she said "LAZY" is so far from the truth of how dangerously sick I was from malnutrition! (That 10 pound gain really threw me off...how can one gain weight and be malnourished???) Yep...you can!
   — .Anita R.