Bariatric Supplements

If you did your homework well before your surgery, you know by now that it is an integral part of the process to start taking vitamins and minerals. Why is that? Easy: you will never eat enough again to be able to get all of them through food. And if you had a bypass, you would have even more of them as it is surgery that works on malabsorption.

The first supplements I was given were the multivitamins right after the surgery. They were soluble, made a kind of fizzy drink and I hated them 🙂 Well, it had nothing to do with the composition, it was the bubbles that my stomach didn’t want and made me sick. So I have to confess here, the very first week I didn’t take them very thoroughly. I did my best but when I started to feel like puking, I threw it away. I became much more consistent maybe after a month. 

It was also quite difficult to swallow any pills. I have a lazy thyroid, so it needs help daily. This is important as it affects many functions in the body. Although the pill is small, it lelt like I was swallowing a stone. The first days were demanding. As days passed, it became better and better, and two weeks after I had no problems with this at all anymore. 

I had my first blood check after 2 months from the surgery. I am freely admitting here that I was quite low at that time. Very tired, physically exhausted, and sleepy all the time. When the results came back from the lab, it was clear why. My body was lacking almost every vitamin or mineral you can think of 😂 That explained how I felt. Never mind, it had a remedy, so my endocrinologist sat down and made a page-long prescription with everything that was necessary to add.

I was very low on vitamin B, so my lips were cracked all the time and there was no way to heal that. It is pretty annoying, especially when you brush your teeth in the morning and try to floss. It cracks open after it just closed a little during the night and starts to bleed. Plus the foam from the toothpaste in it… simply amazing. So I was very happy when I had a pill for this. 

The second thing that eventually took forever to fix was iron. I was so anemic that I think they had to look for some rests of iron in my blood through a magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes. They gave me a high dose pilln right away. Luckily only in pills, I didn’t have to have infusions and go back to hospital for them. But still, it took almost a whole year to have the iron at some reasonable levels again. 

I am not sure if you know what anemia is, I never had any problem with this, so I was blissfully unaware. Then I learned in detail about this. You are tired, dizzy, sleepy, and weak the whole day. You wake up tired despite being almost in a coma the whole night. I was eating very little, not hitting any goals at all, this anemia teamed up, and when you add low blood pressure and low blood sugar… I am surprised I didn’t faint somewhere during the day. This was hard. Level really hard. It took weeks and weeks, it was not getting any better. 

I had to buy a spacious pill organizer to accommodate everything I was taking. This was a good horror story. I was taking 15 pills daily, and yet, I didn’t see much improvement. When I opened the first box in the morning, it was half of my breakfast when I swallowed it all. And I happily continued for lunch and then for dinner, to finish it all before bedtime. Pills and pills, never-ending piles, whole day, and some more. This is what it felt like. 

When I went to the pharmacy to pick it all up, I needed a small backpack so that I could take it home 😂 Till today I still have a special box at home where I store my monthly supply of my supplements. Yes, I keep taking them. Not so many as in the very beginning, but they will never go away. They became an integral part of this story and my daily life. I don’t mind anymore but I had to get used to having the daily organizer with me all the time. 

The doses were changing. I had blood checks every three months during the first year, and usually, they saw that some of them I did not need anymore, so they took it away – one pill less, hurray; some of them I needed less than before, so they change the dose; and then there was my bellowed iron that didn’t want to do anything, so I kept having the same. Actually, now thinking about it, I keep taking the same iron pills till today. The only difference is that my iron level is almost normal, so things improved significantly and I feel finally better. I think I will be a little anemic for the rest of my life 😀

After the first year, the frequency of blood work changes only to twice a year. It falls in spring and in fall. The last time they didn’t change anything, so it seems that things are finally stable and I will keep having the very same amount of supplements from now on. I counted them, and they are 9 a day, so it means I will keep needing my pill organizer. I don’t remember what to take and when, so it is much easier to take out the big box every week, stuff the organizer with everything and have it prepared for the rest of the week. It works for me much better like this. 

It is vital for bariatric patients to take their supplements. If you don’t do that, you will pay dearly in the long term. I never got to this, but I read quite nasty stories online of people who skipped the pills for years and then some major health problem showed up. Lesson learned: if you don’t do what you should be doing, things will not work for you and you will pay.

Just thinking about osteoporosis, no, thank you. As a woman, I am more likely to develop this, plus bariatric surgery, when you always miss some amount of calcium, catastrophe is almost assured. That is why it is better to take your pills to prevent the worst. 

How many pills will you be taking? I have no idea. It all depends on what vitamins and minerals you will be lacking. Have your blood work, and talk to your doctor, they will tell you what to take and how much. Where I live (Spain), all your medication related to chronic conditions falls into prescription and you pay only a part of the total cost. This is great, I pay only a few euros every month and I have everything that I need. I think you are not so lucky if you live outside Europe. Still, there are alternatives that are cheaper than from pharmacy. As it is “only” supplements, here I could order everything from Amazon. So there must be a way. 

Don’t underestimate the importance of supplementing. Make sure you have all the micronutrients you need. It not only makes you feel better physically, it is vital for your long-term health. Make friends with your supplements because from now on they will be your faithful companions for the rest of your life.