Vitamin question

My discharge instructions were to take a children's chewable twice a day.  I didn't even have children's because I knew they weren't complete.  I go back on the 14th for follow up.  Question is, should I be taking the adult and the other supplements now.  Is there a reason I shouldn't be taking all of them now?

I had to chew or crush my pills and medications for the first month after wls.  I personally, would never take children's chewables.  I took Centrum Chewables for the first month and then switched to a regular pill.  Check with your doctor about this and find out if another chewable vitamin is okay to take.

M'Lane

For the first month everything I took was chewable. I took flinstones twice a day, calcium citrate chewables three times a day (yuck), and sublingual B-12 once a day.

After my first month I was able to take regular centrum vitamins, b-12, B-1, calcium citrate, D-3, iron and C.

Flinstones is not recommended because it isn't complete. I just took it the first month. After that the staff gave everyone a pamphlet stating they wouldn't recommend flinstones anymore because they aren't complete.

I've read on here that there are some who can take pills straight out from surgery with no problems. I myself, could not. I had trouble swallowing jus****er, much less a pill.

My surgeon recommended Flintstones with Iron or Flintstones Complete twice a day.  Really looking forward to being able to take a pill.

I respectively disagree with taking Flintstones vitamins! There are adult chewables that are much better for post ops that need to have chewable vitamins. I personally don't like the size of most multivitamins, so I take 2 Centrum adult chewables a day.

Please take the time to compare the Flintstone and Centrum. The contents of both are available on line.

Martha 

That is what I thought. I bought centrum chewables and told them that but they said they prefer children's.  I don't know if they mean for right now until the two week check up or indefinitely.  If the former that's fine, but if the later I definitely have a problem with that based on advice here and my own research.  Do you know of any reason they also would not recommend calcium or anything else right away too?

I have no idea.....I was on my supplements except calcium immediately. They asked me to take Tums right after surgery and I questioned if they wanted me to take them for the calcium (hoping that they said no) as a few people here back then were doing that. Thank goodness they said no because I would have lost a little faith.

I think it was at my post op appointment that they told me when to start calcium, but I can't remember when but I'm sure that it was fairly soon or they would have waited until the 3 month appointment.

Martha 

The ASMBS says to start an adult multi right away and to start iron right away.  They say you can wait up to 30 days to start calcium citrate and up to three months to start B12.  Not that it's best to wait, you can start those right away as well, but that you can wait to start them if you prefer.

I would ask them why they prefer children's chewables in spite of the fact that they are incomplete and the fact that the ASMBS recommends an adult multi.

I thought the iron was recommended for menstruating women only and others just based on labs?

No. The ASMBS recommends 54-63 mg iron for menstruating women and 36 mg for everyone else.