Is this multivitamin OK?

I've seen a lot of posts lately where people mention taking multivitamins that don't meet the ASMBS guidelines for RNY folks.  It seems more and more people are taking Flintstones, gummy vitamins, and things like the liquid multi from Wellesse, which are missing some important nutrients that we need.  So I just wanted to post what it is that I look for in a multivitamin.

I look for vitamins A – E, which are usually listed in alphabetical order on the label.  There should be a bunch of B vitamins in there, which might be listed as B1, B2, etc or might be listed by other names like thiamine and riboflavin.  Unless you’re looking at a gummy vitamin (which I promise won’t have everything we need), they should all be in there.  You don’t have to learn all the hard-to-pronounce names of the B vitamins unless you want to.  It should have vitamin K, too.

Look for copper, zinc and selenium.  If you want a multi with iron, look for that too.  However, you can take a multi without iron and take iron at another time.  I think that’s easiest anyway, because then you can take your calcium and multi at the same time if you want, which means fewer times a day that you have to take vitamins.

Next to each ingredient it will show you how much of that ingredient is in the multi.  You don’t need to know how much vitamin A, how much vitamin E, etc we need  in there.  Next to the amount, it will have a percentage (it’s the percent of the Recommended Daily Allowance that is in there).  It will look like this: vitamin D  400 IU  100%.  Just go down the list and see if most of them are 100% or at least close to that.

If most of the ingredients say 100%, you need to take two a day.  You need a total of 200% of most things.  So if you have a vitamin that only has 50% of most things, you’d need four a day.

Thanks Kelly, can you recomemend a few brands to look for?

Thanks for the info

Helen

Centrum or a generic equivalent (compare the labels), or something like Celebrate, Bariatric Advantage, or Building Blocks

Is regular Centrum cool (take 2 a day, of course) or is Centrum Silver preferable. Or is it that when people recommend the Silver version it's because it comes in a chewable and some people prefer the chewables?

Thanks for being so good about this Kelly! It's like I don't have to do my own research, lol! (Just kidding, everyone should do their own research, I know, I know!)

Regular Centrum is fine.  I would take regular Centrum rather than Centrum Silver if I was taking pills that you swallow, because the Silver does not have vitamin K.

Oh, cool! I thought only the silvers came in chewable form. Good to know!

I use Unjury's Opurity Optimized for Gastric bypass vitamins-You only need one vitamin. I find that I have to cut it in half as it is a big one. But, it is chewable.

My surgeon says also we can take one of Centrum Complete (Adult) Chewables.

Carol

If we take Centrum or something like that, we need two of them a day to meet the ASMBS requirements.