Vitamins and supplements

[bombshellocks 0]

Have seen and am trying PatchAid in the UK. It's quite expensive but so much better than taking copious tablets which I hate.

Does anyone have any experience of them, good or bad? xx

[catwoman7 10,881]

I've read mixed reviews on vitamin patches. They seem to work for some, but not for others. Some clinics don't allow them. I've never tried them because I'm afraid I'd be one of those people they wouldn't work for - but I've considered getting them for traveling since it's just short-term, so it wouldn't be a huge problem if it turned out they didn't work for me.

[liveaboard15 1,292]

My surgeons office specifically said no on the Patches. I wore them for the first 2 weeks. then i started taking capsules. The chewable and the ones that melt in your mouth made me throw up within minutes. Even the capsule ones make me very nauseas but its better than the others.

[colocoral 6]

No I use the patch. I'm in the US and it's not expensive. It's only $18 for a month which is about $0.50 a patch but my doctor said it was fine but I had to add a B 12 patch . The patch did not have enough B12

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[RickM 1,747]

As noted, the Patches seem to work OK for some, and not at all for others.

I would stick with the pills for now, as much of a bother as it may seem. You probably won't need to be taking all that many for long - many programs overkill on their supplement recommendations for the sleeve, based upon their bypass experience, which is fussier in that regard. It usually isn't a big deal, as subsequent lab tests show what you really need, and you can probably stop taking many of them - most of us with a sleeve don't need to supplement as much as those with a bypass (but there's usually something that we need, so we need to find out what that is.)

The problem with starting the patches now, is that when you start getting lab results back in a few months showing that you are fine,, that's great - but how do you know whether it is the patches that your are using doing the job, or that you don't need them at all? So, I would stick it out with the pills for a while to find out what you really need and get your labs stable on them, then try the patch(es) if the pills are still too much of a bother.

[Esk 0]

I also wondered whether Patches worked well and found a small study that had these results: “Multivitamin patch users are more likely to have Vitamin D deficiency and lower serum concentration of various Vitamins and minerals.” You can read the abstract and full results here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11695-019-04070-5. Based on this, I decided to not use vitamin patches 😞