reminder about calcium
Just wanted to post a little reminder about calcium. I've posted this before but it's been a while and I've seen a lot of posts lately from people taking a form of calcium that we can't absorb.
The ASMBS says we need 1500-2000 mg calcium per day and recommends calcium citrate. The two most common kinds of calcium found in supplements are calcium citrate and calcium carbonate. Tums, Viactiv and Caltrate are all calcium carbonate and we don’t absorb that well at all. We absorb about 4% of the calcium in it so you’d need to take about 60 Viactivs every day to get enough calcium. No, that’s not a typo. Bariatric Fusion has a mixture of calcium carbonate and calcium citrate.
Citracal (most forms of it, anyway, but not the gummies) and generic forms of Citracal contain calcium citrate, which is what we need. It’s hard to find chewable calcium citrate in stores but Celebrate and Bariatric Advantage both make them and you can order online. Upcal D, which is a powder you can mix in a drink, is also calcium citrate. You can find liquid forms as well.
Tricalcium phosphate is another kind of calcium found in some supplements and it is also not absorbed well at all. That’s what’s in Flintstones. Wellesse, a liquid calcium supplement, contains a mixture of tricalcium phosphate and calcium citrate, so you’ll only absorb some of the calcium in there. The Citracal gummies also have tricalcium phosphate.
Make sure you take your calcium in doses of 500-600 mg and take them at least two hours apart. Read the label carefully to see what the serving size is. Like, Citrical petites have 400 mg per serving but a serving is TWO pills.
Take them two hours away from your iron.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
Great reminder, Kelly! I was apparently duped/confused by the brand Caltrate - their chewables taste quite good. I have been eating two, three times a day for a month. Well Caltrate is not calcium CITRATE. So I have been taking the type of calcium we don't absorb for an entire month. Sigh...
Thank god for OH - this is how I learned of my stupid stupid rookie mistake!
The name Caltrate sounds like it would be citrate, doesn't it? It's not an uncommon mistake.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
Thank you so much for re-stating these rules, Kelly. I was curious ab out the number of hours between calcium and iron and you answered that.
For the iron doses, is there a limit on those as to how much your body can absorb at once?
If there is a limit to how much iron you can absorb at once, it's a very big number. Michelle from vitalady.com told me I can take 300 mg of iron at a time and absorb it. That's carbonyl iron, so that's 300 mg elemental iron. If you use something like ferrous sulfate, 300 mg would be a small dose because it's only 20% elemental iron.
Also, the ASMBS says to take calcium in doses of 500-600 mg at a time but they don't say anything about limiting the amount of iron you take at once.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
I don't know what kind of iron you've been using, but if you're bumping it up to a big dose, I recommend carbonyl iron. Ferrous sulfate and the other ferrous-types are OK to use, but especially in big doses, they are likely to cause a lot of constipation.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
Those are 25 mg per pill. The bottle will say 50 mg per serving, but a serving is two pills (which the label also says). That's the brand I use and I take 12 of them a day. Yeah, it's a lot. They are really tiny, though. I can swallow six at a time. And those are carbonyl iron.
Kelly
Please note: I AM NOT A DOCTOR. If you want medical advice, talk to your doctor. Whatever I post, there is probably some surgeon or other health care provider somewhere that disagrees with me. If you want to know what your surgeon thinks, then ask him or her. Check out my blog.
