Bari Life Multi Vitamin Tablets

My friend had the RNY 5 years ago and said she is now taking Bari Life, 3 in the morning and 3 in the evening 6 in all, that's all because the tablets were made just for bariatric surgery patients and depending on what procedure is done the tablets are more or less you have to take. If I get these will this be all I need of vitamins ? does anyone else take these ? I heard you get just the amount of vitamins needed.

Which vitamins and how many you need vary depending on type of surgery and your medical history.  RNY patients malabsorb iron, for example, while DSers malabsorb the fat soluble vitamins.  If you have any pre-existing deficiencies, you'll need to take specific supplements to address those. 

Also, iron and calcium interfere with each other, so they have to be taken two hours apart, and B12 is hard to absorb through the digestive track because you make less intrinsic factor, so many people take it sublingually.  I find it hard to believe that six bari life meet all your friend's vitamin requirements, unless the six pills aren't all the same.  If some are multivitamins, some are calcium, and some have iron, then that might work.

No, that would not be all the vitamins you need.

I could not find out from their website what type of calcium they have, but people can only absorb about 500 mg calcium at a time, and it says three of those has 1000 mg calcium.  But if you take three at a time, you won't absorb all that calcium.  The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery recommends 1500 mg calcium minimum for WLS patients, and since people only absorb 500 mg at a time, that means we need to take calcium at least three times a day.

Also, taking six of these a day gives you 45 mg iron, which is enough if you don't have periods, but menstruating women that have RNY or DS needs more than that, according to the  ASMBS.  More importantly, though, the amount of calcium in these would block the absorption of the iron in them.  So you'd need to take iron separately at another time.

Finally, RNY folks can't absorb B12 from a pill they swallow due to the lack of intrinsic factor in the pouch.  They need B12 in a sublingual, or nasal spray, or shots.

I wouldn't count on it.  I started with a bariatric vitamin and had to take 12 per day.  After labwork, I had to add dry versions of all my fat-soluble vitamins (K, E, D & A) separately, and extra calcium to boot. In the end, they only met the needs of my calcium, zinc and B12.  They were only more expensive, but not anywhere near what I needed.  I take fewer pills piecing together my own regimen.