Recommendations on best vitamins to take in the first few months?

I take 2 Flintstones chewables/day and my vitamin levels were good at my 3-month checkup. But, likely, your doctor's office or your Nutritionist will give you recommendations.

I use the celebrate chewable multivitamin. I also have to take iron on top of what iron is in the multivitamin. I also take calcium, I use the dissolvable ones from bariatric fusion. A chewable or dissolvable vitamin D. Sublingual b12.

Vitamin requirements may vary slightly based on surgery type and also if you are a female that is still menstrauting. Your surgeon may have further suggestions, such as not taking gummies or Flintstones, mine did. My surgeon also recommended chewable vitamins in the beginning followed by capsules if they were not tolerated. Tablets may not be as well absorbed if you are a bypass patient.

Your surgeon should have specific information available for you.

I would suggest Celebrate or Bariatric Advantage. I know for Celebrate you can order a sample pack and it is FILLED with everything! I actually did my Celebrate sample pack unboxing on youtube now that I think about it.

Bariatric Fusion chewables! They seem to be less expensive than other brands. I prefer the strawberry flavor.

Bariatric-branded vitamins are not necessary or better. Taking 2 Multivitamins a day from Centrum or One A Day, or their generics (from Costco, Walgreens, etc) are fine. Try to find a multi that does NOT contain both calcium and iron as taking them together impedes absorption of both, so then it is as if you didn’t take them at all. I take One A Day 50+ as it doesn’t contain iron and then I dose my heme iron separately (2-4 hours apart) from my multi and calcium citrate supplementation. My thyroid medication is also impacted if I take iron and calcium with it , so I don’t; instead, I take thyroid RXs first thing in the morning and vitamins at lunch, dinner, and bedtime. Works out great, which has been verified with excellent lab work results.

If you find your vitamins are too big, you can use a pill cutter to make them smaller. However, I didn’t need to do this myself. The only modification I did in early post-op days was to take vitamins one at a time instead of as a handful of pills. As well, don’t stress out about taking or not taking vitamins in the first month as you have plenty of them stored up in your body and won’t go deficient right away. Ease into your new vitamin regimen if that works better for you.

i found chewable and dissolving vitamins made me nauseous or caused me to vomit after bariatric surgery. I think this is because they contain sugar alcohols which are no bueno for me now.

Lastly, my doctor emphatically said to NOT take Flinstones or children’s vitamins as they don’t contain the right types of vitamins and amounts.

Edited July 1, 20188 yr by MarinaGirl

I've been using PatchMD patches for almost 5 months now. And before anyone says they don't work, my 3 month post op labs were all good (except for my Vitamin D, but living in New England, we need extra Vitamin D support anyway) So, the patches are working exactly as advertised for me. I do take some biotin quick dissolves, a once a week Vitamin D2 pill and a daily vitamin D3 tablet. As well as some chewable fiber supplements. But that's it, all other vitamin needs are supplied by the patches.