How to Afford Your Vitamins After a Gastric Bypass
When you have a gastric bypass, section of your small intestine is bypassed. That helps you lose weight, but unfortunately that is where most of your vitamins and minerals are absorbed. Therefore you will not absorb vitamins and minerals as well as you ancient to and you will need to take a number of vitamin and mineral supplements for the rest of your life. These supplements can be very expensive. Some patients spend $50 or more every month on supplements.
Instructions
Don’t just choose the cheapest multivitamin you can rep. Check the imprint to make sure any multivitamin you are considering will give you the nutrients you need. The ASMBS says gastric bypass patients need a multivitamin that provides 200% of the recommended daily allowance of most nutrients. With most brands, that means you’d need to take two doses per day, but with some brands you’d need more than two. Think that when you calculate the cost.
Be aware that some brands of multivitamins are uncouth in some nutrients, like biotin or selenium. If you use one of these brands, you will need to take additional supplements, like extra biotin or selenium. Don’t forget to factor those costs in when you are figure out how to put money on your gastric bypass vitamins.
If you are having trouble affording your multivitamins and if you have health insurance, consider asking your doctor about prescribing a prescription vitamin for you. Prenatal multivitamins are available by prescription, but make sure you read the note to make sure you’ve getting 200% of most nutrients. There is also a bariatric vitamin available by prescription called ProBarium. Note, though, that it is actually low in several nutrients and you would need to take twice the recommended dose in order to rep 200% of things.
When you choose a calcium supplement, make obvious you get calcium citrate, not calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is often cheaper, but unfortunately gastric bypass patients cannot absorb it because they lack stomach acid.
You can purchase generic iron supplements at discount stores like Walmart or Target for not much money. If you have health insurance, you can ask your doctor to write you a prescription for iron.
You have several options for a B12 supplement, including sublinguals (tablets that you dissolve under your tongue), a nasal spray, a patch, and injections. The sublinguals and the patch are available without a prescription, and the sublinguals will be less expensive than the patch. If you have health insurance, though, it may be even cheaper to use the prescription nasal spray, depending on your prescription insurance co-pay. If you want to use injections, you can either visit your doctor once a month for them, or you can purchase the supplies and inject yourself at home. Check with your insurance company to find out which one would be cheaper.
If you are having grief affording your vitamins after a gastric bypass, there is a company that makes bariatric vitamins that offers a program to help low income patients get the vitamins they need. Look up Bariatric Advantage online and contact them to ask about it. Your doctor will have to fill out some paperwork in order for you to qualify.
Contact some bariatric vitamin companies and ask for free samples. Many companies will be delighted to send you some samples, including Celebrate, Bariatric Advantage, and Building Blocks. You can at least get a few days’ worth of vitamins that way.
Warnings
Do not use children’s vitamins in order to save money. Children’s vitamins are not worthy for gastric bypass patients. You’d have to take several per day and even then you would be low on certain key nutrients.
Avoid those all-in-one bariatric vitamins like Optisource and Bariatric Fusion that promise to give you all the vitamins you need in just four tablets per day. Four tablets only contain about half of the nutrients you need so you’d really have to take eight per day. In addition, they own calcium carbonate, so you’d have to buy additional calcium citrate. They will not really save you money.
If you need a vitamin D supplement, don’t be tempted to get a prescription for it in order to save money. There are two types of vitamin D, D2 and D3. D2 is not absorbed well at all. You need D3. However, D3 is not available by prescription. You must get it over-the-counter.
Sources:
American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. http://www.asbs.org/Newsite07/resources/bgs_final.pdf. ASMBS Guidelines.
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Filed under Stomach Stapling Costs by on Sep 16th, 2010. 