can someone just give me a slap in my head..vitamin issues
I had my first WLS in 2002. The bariatric program had terrible pre op education and post op follow up. I was told to take a multivitamin (I am pretty sure they just said one) and 1500 to 2000 mg of calcium citrate a day. I don't think I was told to take iron because I wasn't menstruating. I don't believe they told me to take anything else but because I had a very malabsorptive procedure I knew that I needed to take additional A, D, E and K vitamins because those are fat soluble. I found these chewable ADEKs that I was to take 4 times a day.
For the first few years I followed that protocol pretty closely and my labs were pretty good, the ones that they ran anyway. I didn't know until much later that the labs they ran were very insufficient for the amount of malabsorption I had.
Around 4 or 5 years out I started regaining weight and I mistakenly thought that meant that I was absorbing more vitamins, too. I always took the multivitamin, in fact I even started taking 2 a day even though at that time I hadn't been told to. I was slack with my calcium, though, only taking about 1000 mg a day and I ran out of ADEKs and didn't bother to refill them.
It took a few years but gradually I started feeling worse and worse. I saw my doctor because I became so fatigued that I couldn't function. I had a bunch of other symptoms but nothing added up. I had all kinds of tests for thyroid, pulmonary function, sleep tests, everything but a through set of labs. My doctor knew I had WLS and that it was very malabsorptive but apparently it never occurred to her to test for vitamin deficiency and since she didn't bring it up I didn't think it was related, either.
After none of the tests could find anything I finally started to question whether or not it was related to my WLS. I contacted a person who is very knowledgeable about malabsorptive WLS and she directed me to a list of complete labs to have run. I brought the list to my doctor and had the tests run but for some reason I never got the results of many of them. I also started taking some of the vitamins my friend had recommended. The results I did get back showed I was very low on vitamin D and my ferritin level was 7. I had an iron infusion and went on D50 but I was still feeling awful.
To make an already long story shorter I finally had a revision to address my malabsorption and some of the side effects, including my deficiencies, although that wasn't the only reason. It took me six months after my revision to finally be able to have the correct set of labs done and by that point I had been supplementing correctly for close to a year. All my labs were in the normal range. A few of them were close to the lower end of normal but they were in range. My D went from about 10 in Dec, 2009 to 74 in Jan, 2011.
It took nearly a year for me to recover from the fatigue I had, to get where I could function again and even work. I still have terrible night vision. I had no idea that that could have been related to deficiencies. I just thought it was part of getting older. That started about 3 years ago and while it has improved it hasn't completely gone away so I rarely drive at night if I can help it.
I am religious about taking my vitamins now. I never want to go back to how sick I was. I was so afraid that I would never get better. I didn't want to live that way any more, housebound and unable to even play with my grand kids or even watch them because I was too fatigued to chase after them. I have 2 pill containers that are each for a week and have 4 slots for each day so I fill them up every 2 weeks and I have them in the kitchen right by the sink so that I see it every time I go to get some water. I have to say I am about 99.9% in taking them. Once in a while I will miss a calcium dose but not often, maybe once a month. I try to keep extras with me at all times in case I am gone longer then I plan on.
I also forgot to mention that I had a bone density scan last Feb. and it showed I had osteoporosis. I hope when I have my next one it will show improvement.
For the first few years I followed that protocol pretty closely and my labs were pretty good, the ones that they ran anyway. I didn't know until much later that the labs they ran were very insufficient for the amount of malabsorption I had.
Around 4 or 5 years out I started regaining weight and I mistakenly thought that meant that I was absorbing more vitamins, too. I always took the multivitamin, in fact I even started taking 2 a day even though at that time I hadn't been told to. I was slack with my calcium, though, only taking about 1000 mg a day and I ran out of ADEKs and didn't bother to refill them.
It took a few years but gradually I started feeling worse and worse. I saw my doctor because I became so fatigued that I couldn't function. I had a bunch of other symptoms but nothing added up. I had all kinds of tests for thyroid, pulmonary function, sleep tests, everything but a through set of labs. My doctor knew I had WLS and that it was very malabsorptive but apparently it never occurred to her to test for vitamin deficiency and since she didn't bring it up I didn't think it was related, either.
After none of the tests could find anything I finally started to question whether or not it was related to my WLS. I contacted a person who is very knowledgeable about malabsorptive WLS and she directed me to a list of complete labs to have run. I brought the list to my doctor and had the tests run but for some reason I never got the results of many of them. I also started taking some of the vitamins my friend had recommended. The results I did get back showed I was very low on vitamin D and my ferritin level was 7. I had an iron infusion and went on D50 but I was still feeling awful.
To make an already long story shorter I finally had a revision to address my malabsorption and some of the side effects, including my deficiencies, although that wasn't the only reason. It took me six months after my revision to finally be able to have the correct set of labs done and by that point I had been supplementing correctly for close to a year. All my labs were in the normal range. A few of them were close to the lower end of normal but they were in range. My D went from about 10 in Dec, 2009 to 74 in Jan, 2011.
It took nearly a year for me to recover from the fatigue I had, to get where I could function again and even work. I still have terrible night vision. I had no idea that that could have been related to deficiencies. I just thought it was part of getting older. That started about 3 years ago and while it has improved it hasn't completely gone away so I rarely drive at night if I can help it.
I am religious about taking my vitamins now. I never want to go back to how sick I was. I was so afraid that I would never get better. I didn't want to live that way any more, housebound and unable to even play with my grand kids or even watch them because I was too fatigued to chase after them. I have 2 pill containers that are each for a week and have 4 slots for each day so I fill them up every 2 weeks and I have them in the kitchen right by the sink so that I see it every time I go to get some water. I have to say I am about 99.9% in taking them. Once in a while I will miss a calcium dose but not often, maybe once a month. I try to keep extras with me at all times in case I am gone longer then I plan on.
I also forgot to mention that I had a bone density scan last Feb. and it showed I had osteoporosis. I hope when I have my next one it will show improvement.
WLS 10/28/2002 Revision 7/23/2010
High Weight (2002) 240 Revision Weight (2010) 220 Current Weight 115.
This is what i do: I take 7 empty pill bottles and load them up with my all my meds and vits for the week. So one pill bottle has a days worth of meds and vits. I tried using the weekly pill container but I had so many vits and meds a days worth didn't fit into the pill slot.
But with the pill bottle I fill it up on Sundays and just grab one and put it in my purse on my way out the door in the morning.
When i was first out of surgery I would set my alarm on my phone to go off every 2hrs and I would take meds every two hours.
This system works great for me and also helps alert me when I'm running low on vits. Good luck to you.
But with the pill bottle I fill it up on Sundays and just grab one and put it in my purse on my way out the door in the morning.
When i was first out of surgery I would set my alarm on my phone to go off every 2hrs and I would take meds every two hours.
This system works great for me and also helps alert me when I'm running low on vits. Good luck to you.
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