Is this multivitamin OK?

Doesn't Centrum contain Calcium Carbonate...I thought that wasn't good for us?  The only centrum that I found that doesn't contain calcium at all are the centrium chewy (the ones that look like gumballs).

We don't absorb calcium carbonate, and in some cases it has been linked to kidney stones, but I don't think the small amount in Centrum is likely to cause kidney stones.  Just don't count it toward your calcium intake for the day.

I was hoping that you would address this issue! I can't believe how many postings I have read lately of people taking Flintstones!!  (Personally, I have an objection as a parent to a vitamin, that should be seen as medication, being shaped/flavored like a character or candy, but that is another subject all together!)

Flintstones are for kids!! NOT for post bariatric adults!

Martha 

Yeah, it seems like more people are taking them lately.  To me, it just seems logical that a vitamin made for children with normal digestive systems would not meet the needs of an adult with special nutritional needs.

But it's also scary how many people are taking gummies, which are missing way more stuff than Flintstones.

Even the new Centrum 'gumball' vitamin is one that a normal adult dose is 4 a day which would be 8 a day for us. The first 2 ingredients on them is sucrose and corn syrup. That bothers me on so many levels...... On top of the fact that the content is VERY incomplete! 

Oh, wow.  I just looked those up.  Why would anyone bother to take those?  They have no thiamine, no niacin, no vitamin K, no copper, no selenium, no magnesium, no manganese, etc.  Might as well eat candy.

We as patients take what our doctors tell us we can take.  I could not tolerate BA chewables, Flinestones complete was on my list and is a chewable that I can tolerate.  I take two a day and at my 2 month labs had to add in Vit A supplement and that was it.  All of my other labs were where they were supposed to be.  I am counting down the day when I can swallow a whole pill of all the supplements that we need.  My MD states that it not until 1 year out so I'm stuck chewing everything until that point.  I have another lab recheck on Jan 25 so I'll see where I'm at then.

We, as patients, also need to be advocates for our own health. I was told by an endocrinologist to go to the lab and eat something sugary to cause a blood sugar crash. I declined knowing that wasn't in my best interest. Someone on this board was given a glucose tolerance test to diagnose the possible case of RH. Her blood sugar dropped to somewhere in the low 30's after being advise by many here that know better than not to do that, she could have had a seizure or fallen into a coma.

Our vitamin guru, Kelly, has researched in depth the AMSBS (American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery) and I have also reviewed the same. What they recommend is very far off from what Flintstones have. For many vitamins the results are not going to show up right away and by the time they do show up in a blood test it is so much harder to get them back up.

Martha 

I know some docs recommend Flintstones.  The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery says we should not take children's vitamins, though, and Flintstones do not have all of the nutrients the ASMBS recommends.  It is up to each of us to decide which advice we will follow, our surgeon or the ASMBS or something else.

It often takes more than two months to develop nutritional deficiencies.  It's not surprising you were low on vitamin A, though, since Flintstones contains less than the amount of vitamin A recommended by the ASMBS and also contain beta carotene, which we can't absorb well at all.