Best Chewable Multi??

Hey y'all! So...my nut had me on chewable Flintstones Completes. I've heard so many bad things about that. So...I'm hoping y'all will let me know what to get. I'm just at 8wks out so I may still need a chewable. I'm going to go pick some up after work so I'd really appreciate some advice. Thank you so much!

Recommendations for good tasting products are hard to give because everyone is so different.  That said, I used Centrum chewables until I could comfortably swallow whole multis, which was around the 3 month mark.  They were orange flavored and I likened them to a sweetart candy.  Not sure if they come in any other flavors.  Whatever you decide, just make sure you get an adult formulation if you're buying them locally.  No gummies, not even the ones made for adults.

I like the Celebrate manderin orange!

No gummies?!  that's all i have been taking (for a multi and vitamin c) are they bad to take? it was such a mess for me to find vitamins I liked that i just settled for the gummies because they didn't make me gag.  i am almost 11 months post op.

Gummies are crap.  They don't have iron, selenium, copper, zinc, molybedenum -- just to name a few things.  The reason being is that they don't taste good.

It's an unfortunate truth that the things we need don't taste wonderful.

They are bad for anyone, not just WLS folks.  I don't know what brand you're taking, but most are lacking in many B vitamins and many minerals. For instance, VitaCraves by One A Day have no B1, B2, B3, copper, or selenium.  And that is typical of gummies.  We need 200% of the RDA of most things after RNY.

Do I understand you that gummy multis and vitamin C is all you've been taking?  No calcium, B12, or iron?

Kelly

oh, no.  i meant as far as a multi and vitamin C goes, I have only been taking the gummies.  I take the chewable iron by bariatric advantage as well as the B12 from there.  I also take B6.  My only form of calcium has been 3 Viactiv chews at night but I have noticed no one else (on OH) takes their calcium in that way so I am going to find the Blue Bonnet liquid calcium citrate with vitamin D3 and magnesium as soon as I go to the health food store.  (saw on another post)
My surgeons staff NEVER gets back to me when I call and they never check to see how I am so I feel like in the vitamin area I have just been floundering around trying different things....wasting money cause i hate almost every vitamin, until i discovered the gummies :-(
This forum on OH has been so great though i just want to get on the right track.

I hate to tell you this... but the Vactiv calcium chews are no good either.  They are calcium carbonate, and we can't absorb that after RNY because we lack stomach acid and you need a fair amount of stomach acid to break down calcium carbonate so it can be absorbed.  We need calcium citrate.  The Blue Bonnet will be fine for you.

I hate that surgeons do such a lousy job at educating us about what vitamins we need.  Well, not all surgeons, but many of them.

If you have trouble finding chewable vitamins you like, are you able to just swallow a pill now?  Or you can contact Bariatric Advantage and Celebrate and they will both send you free samples of their chewable vitamins so you can see if you like them.  Celebrate also has a drink mix that is a multi plus 500 mg calcium called ENS.  I think it tastes like Koolaid.

Kelly

Kelly-
i feel like crying!  I have been doing it all wrong in the vitamin department and am worried I have caused damage because I have gone almost a year without the right vitamins in my body. 
I even talked to a pharmasist (told her I had had WLS) the last time I was looking for a good calcium supplement and she told me to stick with the Viactiv.
Thank you very muh for the tips. Yes, I think I can swallow a pill now, I swallow my biotin pill (from BA)
I will check into these suggestions.  thank you so much.

My guess is that most pharmacists don't know much about WLS.  But the surgeon that did my RNY actually told me to take calcium carbonate, so it's not unusual to get bad advice, unfortunately.

I'm gonna give you a link to the ASMBS guidelines.  It's kind of dry reading, but it's stuff we all should know.

http://www.asbs.org/Newsite07/resources/bgs_final.pdf

Are you getting labs done regularly?  If so, you should know if you have a problem.  Some vitamins we can store in our bodies for quite a while, so even if you haven't been taking them, you might be OK.  And most problems are reversible once you start taking the right stuff (although some aren't, some are permanent).

We should get a bone density scan done at one year post-op to check on our bones, so it's about time for you to do that anyway.  That will let you know if not getting the right calcium has caused a problem or not.  I wouldn't panic, though, and I wouldn't cry yet.  Just get on the right track now.

Kelly