Vitamins After Weight Loss Surgery

May 29th, 2009

Starting with the full-liquid diet stage a week after your weight loss surgery, we recommend a daily multivitamin for the rest of your life. Why are vitamins so important after surgery? Can you get them from food rather than taking supplements? Which specific vitamins do you need to take? Registered Dietitian Lynn Holmberg shares the truth about vitamins after bariatric surgery in this week’s article.

The Importance of Vitamins After Bariatric Surgery

Weight loss operations like gastric bypass and adjustable gastric banding reduce the size of your stomach so that you are only able to eat a little at a time. However, your body still needs its full daily requirement of vitamins and minerals. Certain nutrients such as calcium and iron cannot be normally absorbed after a partially malabsorptive procedure like the gastric bypass, and even after a purely restrictive LAP-BAND® System surgery it is also necessary to take a daily multivitamin. “Taking the recommended dose of vitamin supplements after surgery helps your body get the valuable nutrients that you may not be able to get from three small meals a day,” Lynn advises, “It also helps prevent potentially serious health problems that may result from the lack of these nutrients.”

Which Vitamins Should You Take?

According to Lynn, multivitamins are the most important bariatric supplements, followed by calcium, iron, and B12. Here is what our Bariatric surgeons recommend to our patients:

• Multivitamin with iron daily (Options include Bariatric Advantage®, Centrum® Tablets, Chewables, or Liquid.)
• Calcium Citrate 500 mg three times daily (1500mg) for gastric bypass patients (Bariatric Advantage®, Citracal® tablets, or chewable alternatives), or Calcium Carbonate (1200mg) daily for LAP-BAND® System patients. (Options include Bariatric Advantage®, Caltrate® tablets, or Caltrate® 600+D PLUS Minerals Chewables.)
• Sublingual (under-the-tongue) B12 weekly or monthly injection depending on your surgeon’s instructions for gastric bypass patients. (Options include Bariatric Advantage® or alternatives available at any drug store.)
• Other supplements on an individual basis.

Chewable or liquid supplements are mandatory for the first few weeks after surgery because they are easier to digest and absorb, and because you cannot swallow large pills. When you are able to swallow large pills (bigger than an aspirin), you may switch to non-chewable supplements if you would like. B12 must be sublingual or injected because gastric bypass patients cannot normally digest or absorb B12.

What About Vitamin-Rich Foods?

Lynn Holmberg does not recommend any specific vitamin-rich foods because small portions – an essential guideline for eating after bariatric surgery – cannot provide sufficient amounts of these nutrients. “Remember, protein must be the primary source of your nutrition – it is crucial to ensure that the body gets enough of it to maintain itself,” Lynn says. “Fruit and vegetables are secondary; besides, sometimes bariatric patients have intolerances to some fruit or veggies.”

Next week, we will talk about recognizing and working with emotions to ensure weight loss surgery success – a topic often overlooked in post-surgery guidelines and articles. See you then!

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Entry Filed under: Food, Lap Band, Realize Band, gastric bypass