can someone just give me a slap in my head..vitamin issues

 OK so I posted in here a few times with vitamin questions. Thanks to Kelly and Dave I pretty much have the correct vitamins and supplements I need. However they are of no use to me if i DONT TAKE THEM! I dont know if I need a slap in the head or what but I am having a hard time taking them..even my regular pills. I am in a funk here. In the past 2 weeks Im lucky if I have taken a fulls days worth more than 2x. WTH is going on? I never forgot to tak epills before but now  am really bad. Is it vitamin denial? lol. Has anyone ever been through this and what did you do to get back on track? Im back to work next week and I hope that will help me

 here's the deal.. its NOT AN OPTION.  I'm sure Kelly will respond with all of the irreversable problems with some of your B levels getting too low, but let's look at some of the less dramatic sounding things I dealt with ... even when I WAS taking my vits and they needed to be adjusted..

1) My nut didn't tell me to take a B complex right away.. they go off of if you're deficient apparently and it wasn't until I was battling thrush did they say, "well, you're showing symptoms of a deficiency even though your labs are ok, so go ahead and take them"

2) My clotting time increased due to a vitamin K deficiency.  They don't really check your actually K levels, but measure how long it takes your blood to clot.  This one scared me the most.. what if I had been injured and my blood wasn't clotting normally???  I was compliant with my vitamins, but had to switch to a high ADEK version 3X a day to get this to normalize.

3) I had a 2 month stretch last fall where I was either battling a UTI, yeast infection, or cold sore due to what I believe was just a weak immune system from the vitamin B decificency from not taking them for 6 months post-op.

do you really want to gamble with your health when you've taken this huge step to try to improve your health.  Get up, NOW.. GO TAKE YOUR EFFING VITAMINS!

(how was that?)

When you begin to feel weak, dizzy, no energy, many dental issues, etc.--this may make you realize the importantance of these daily supplements.  You need to make SURE you have labs every few months the first year, and a minimum of once per year after year one.  Adjust your supplement levels up or down based on labs OR add additional supplements if needed.  I bring little pill containers on keychains to my post op groups to show others how they can keep supplements with them. If leaving home to go to work in a hurry without supplements, these little pill containers in your car, purse, desk at work, etc. will allow you to get these morning supplements.  Make up a small sign to place on fridge, next to coffee pot, on bathroom mirror, etc. to alert you to TAKE your vitamins.  Segmented pill containers are what I use. I take my evening pills, place that empty semented container back in it's holder, and take out the next days supplement compartment. That way, when I wake up, I see the new day supplments right away.  If you have to, buy a small segmented pill container, and take that to work for you. Place this pill container in a place you see daily, like opening your desk drawer, etc.   If this works for you, do it every week.  DAVE

I have my pills in a container next to my computer, since I sit here most of the day. Above my screen, I have a note "Take your pills", it really helps to remind me.
A friend has her pills on the bathroom sink with a note on the mirror so she remembers to take them when she is getting ready for work.

 Figure out what will work with your life. If you're at a computer all day long, set an alert to remind you to take your pills. Use the alarm on your cell phone. Stick up post-its reminding you.

When I was first post-surgery, every morning I counted out my pills, and made 4 little piles that I left on the kitchen island, where I'd see them throughout the day. That was enough to remind me to take them.

It will eventually become a habit.

I had a short time when I did not take my vitamins as much as I was suppose to.
Then I realized that was because taking them made me feel badly. The pills were sitting really badly in the pouch, and sometimes it felt like they got "stuck". Or I was burping the smell of the pills... horrible, or the sugar alcohol in them was causing a lot of gas, or that they were expensive, and so on. 

I realized that I need to find vitamins that I will take every day. That means chewable Multi and some chewable calcium ... The rest - I needed capsules. 
It took me a while and I am there.
Now I take the vitamins like candy.    They taste good, so after lunch and dinner - or just because... I take them. I keep them in front of my monitor at work.    3 bottles: multi, calcium and magnesium, iron.  The rest - I take every morning, and I set the vitamins and minerals up once every 2 weeks (D, B-complex, K, A, fish oil, and any others that I do take).
I take that "extras" every day - skipping maybe one day a week.. I get weekly B12 shot ( i do need them weekly).

You need to make sure you find out why you do not like taking them. and then find some you can take. The health risk is too great to ignore that.  

We just started a vitamin post.  We will post daily trying to remind everyone to take them.  It will be in the evening so that we can check in and say if we did good or not. 

::::Gibbs slap to the back of the head:::::

((((hug)))) PLEASE, please, please take your vitamins girl! Everyone has awesome advice. I too use one of those ol' "granny pill cases" and each week load it up with all the vitamins I need daily.
Place it in your bathroom or near your computer. Many of the compartments "pop out" to take with you.

You know what happens to a diabetic who doesn't take their insulin right? This is just as if not more serious. Not taking vitamins WILL cause irreversable blindness, nerve damage, muscle loss and tooth loss (Yep, all your teeth will break and fall out. I wasn't taking enough calcium and my teeth began to break off at the ROOTS in my skull!!!!!!) Can't replace those babe when they break off!

Can't replace blind eyes. Even if you started religiously taking the vitamins, once it's GONE, it's gone. Neuropathy, and death...All these are not "maybe" but is like playing russian roulet with a nice fat 457 magnum pistol. It WILL get you in the end.

Many people who you used to hear the "horror stories" about 10-20 years ago were ones who the surgeons did NOT give them proper vitamin protocol (IE: Eat flintstones and Tums) and 5 to 10 years later they died from irreversable vitamin damage.

You CANNOT play "catch up" on this babe... This is like insulin to a diabetic, you gotta take them EACH and every day. For LIFE....

The saddest case I saw in real life is a wonderfully nice lady in our real life support group. She had her surgery (RNY) 15 years ago. Was told to take "Tums and 1 Flintstone". Sometimes she took them most times not.

She is totally night blind, has lost her license, and must walk with a cane (has permanent nerve damage) she is losing her vision even though she is now taking all the required vitamins. She is so young, only 32 and will never "see" her childrens faces again. She is nearly totally blind in daylight too, and has had to have 4 iron transfusions, two of which nearly killed her and caused her not taking the right vitamins causes her to often stutter and forget stuff because she has permanent brain damage.  Her children are 3 and 10 and are horrified to see their mommy going through this. Her husband couldn't take all the medical problems and her losing her vision and left her (jerk!).

Please, please...Take the vitamins.
Warmly,
Jackie

What's making it hard to remember them?

For a while I was having trouble getting all my vitamins in.  Honestly, a lot of it was laziness on my part.  I admit it.  I started keeping most of them on the table at the end of the couch where I like to sit and now I don't even have to get up to get them and I am much more likely to take them.

Also, I was tired of the multi I had been using but I didn't want to buy more until I used all of them because I don't like to waste things, especially money.  But I was sometimes skipping the multi because I didn't like it anymore.  I went ahead and bought new ones and now I take them all the time.

I do something similar to what Kelly does. Put my stuff where I'm going to be near them every day. Early on I set reminders on my smart phone, packed them in my lunch, etc.