My question or concern is that I really need the Gastric Sleeve, however I am already currently anemic (Iron deficiency). I take 3 Iron Supplement pills a day. I have heard that even the Gastric Sleeve can disrupt the absorption or Iron and could make my anemia worse. Can anyone give me any insight or details on this. I would like to proceed with this surgery, but not sure if the benefits outweigh the risks.....HELP!
Iron Deficiency Anemia
- Thread starter BonBon
- Start date
eladams2015
Member
There are bariatric iron supplements that are better absorbed by WLS patients. I would definitely discuss this with your docs prior to moving forward.
gzar
Member
I have no helpful insight; my 3-month bloodwork after sleeve showed iron deficiency so I started a better vitamin regimen w/iron and have great numbers since. I'm doing the Nascobal vitamin package with the B12 nasal spray...couldn't stand giving myself shots lol.
However the first 3-4 months following surgery I didn't eat hardly anything with iron. Literally no raw spinach, broccoli, no green beans, no legumes, no liver, tofu, blah blah. Nor did I cook on cast iron as I wasn't hardly eating anything from a pan. So I'm not 100% convinced my reduced stomach was to blame; rather my diet. I have since also normalized my diet and include plenty dark veggies
But I do have a question for you - what is your diet like? Do you normally eat foods that are a normal good source of iron?
However the first 3-4 months following surgery I didn't eat hardly anything with iron. Literally no raw spinach, broccoli, no green beans, no legumes, no liver, tofu, blah blah. Nor did I cook on cast iron as I wasn't hardly eating anything from a pan. So I'm not 100% convinced my reduced stomach was to blame; rather my diet. I have since also normalized my diet and include plenty dark veggies
But I do have a question for you - what is your diet like? Do you normally eat foods that are a normal good source of iron?
dianeseattle
Member
since the surgery is based on malabsorption, absorption is a huge issue. There are several really important iron- deficient-themed posts I have seen in the last year that go into great detail about what you're facing. It is totally worth a search through thousands of posts in the archives to find out more about iron and how it's absorbed relating to weight loss surgery.
I eat a lot of broccoli, and spinich and romaine salads. I eat legumes once a week probably, and green beans once in a while. I am not a liver or tofu person. So I guess my diet isn't bad, but it isn't great either. I didn't start to eat the green or leafy veggies until probably a year ago. One thing I am wondering which I haven't looked at yet either is if there is some correlation between your body's natural chemistry and the level if iron. I haven't talked to anyone about this thought, but it just seems like the body is an amazing but delicate thing. There are so many things that can happen when your hormone, or gut flora are disrupted or off. A part of me just thinks there is a natural balance in things unless you have other more serious health conditions.
Thank you for your info. I will keep researching. My Insurance deductible is already met and I have been on a medication for weight loss ( the 2nd or 3rd one I have tried) and the side effects are intolerable. So, I will keep researching and talking to my Doctors and hopefully be able to get the sleeve done toward in like October or November.
Do you have any regrets about doing the surgery. Unfortunately, I can probably only be off work 2 weeks....How long was your recovery time? Do you have to take a special type of multi vitamin or can you just take regular vitamins? Did you have any energy after 2 weeks to where is is plausible to go back to work?
Thank you, my regular PCP isn't too helpful, but I will talk to my other doctors about it and research it some more.
dianeseattle
Member
I have absolutely no regrets about having the surgery. I'm a little bit vain so I did hate the fact that the 7in vertical scar in the middle of my midriff was visible and that meant I could not wear crop tops without everyone seeing my scar. But I am way over it
You have to take two multivitamins a day and for many people, in order to maintain a correct level of vitamins and minerals, you have to take additional supplements. And they are supposed to be chewable. That's because you don't absorb as many nutrients after surgery cuz it doesn't stay in your stomach and small intestine long enough to really break down. I don't use chewables except for my two multivitamin tabs, which I get at Trader Joe's . But I just chose my supplements by reading labels. I discovered there were the exact same percentages of recommended daily allowances in Flintstone vitamins as there are in Centrum.
The whole vitamin business is really a scam on the American people because one vitamin supplement is rarely better than the next if they contain the RDAs. I actually had my vitamins and minerals in place, ready to go, before I had the surgery. And then over time I added or subtracted depending upon my blood work. My doctor does a metabolic blood panel on me once a year at least and I always meet or exceed the minimum beneficial allowances.
I was also in a University of Washington study about bariatric surgery for seven years after my surgery so once a year they would put me through a day of testing and blood work to see how I was doing. And I did absolutely fine.
In my opinion the bariatric vitamin business is also a scam. They just take the vitamins and minerals that you're supposed to have and put the word bariatric on the label and then sell it for way more than regular vitamins, even though you don't get any more benefit from these than you do from any good vitamin supplement you can buy over the counter. Read the labels. That's the important part.
Since I had RYGB and did it through an open procedure, my recovery time was much longer than yours will be since you're having the sleeve. People with sleeves sometimes are only down for a day or two. Although they may have other problems like nausea diarrhea whatever, they don't have to deal with the stitches and the healing that is necessary when an abdominal surgery is performed.
Still I was up and at 'em right away because I had to feed myself. I was taking a lot of pain medicine because of my incision and I had constipation for the first time in my life and it was epic. I always try to tell people to take a laxative. Start taking your laxative at least a week before surgery and continue after the surgery. The fiber laxative seems to be very effective. But since you don't have the benefits of eating greens right away, it's a lot harder on your digestive system when you need to eliminate or evacuate.
You absolutely do not want to be straining during a bowel movement. So take those laxatives, because you can damage yourself permanently by pushing too hard on your bowels and your pelvic floor.
But I got up and walked around and had to report to my boyfriend and all these other things, including social events I had to attend that included food. I didn't tell anyone except the people I was living with that I had had the surgery. So I just had to make things look as normal as possible so nobody was suspicious about the fact that I was losing weight. That was really important to me. It's not necessarily as important to anyone else. But it really was important to me because if I had told my judgmental family about it, they would have just dismissed all the progress I made by changing my eating habits after surgery. They would have thought I took the easy way out. Believe me, it is far from Easy.
And changing my eating habits was the hardest thing about the surgery. I didn't get fat because I was eating a lot of pastry and other stuff is not good for you. I was just eating huge portions of regular food at every meal and snacking in between. I think 9 out of 10 people will tell you they really really really miss their old eating habits.
And I don't think that your energy is much affected by the surgery unless you are taking opiates afterward, as I was. As soon as I ran out of pills and wanted to go back to the YMCA, I did it. And it was certainly within two weeks. And for you it'll probably just be a couple days.
You can certainly get some good advice here by reading about other people's experiences, but your experience will be unique to you and your body type and your amount of weight loss and whether or not you follow the staged eating schedule after surgery.
So I say just make sure you follow the instructions given to you by your doctor and your nutritionist, to the letter. Thousands of people have this surgery every month, maybe every week. They all heal up just fine and really the surgery itself has been perfected so it's no worse than a visit to your dentist. I personally think going to the dentist is worse!
Do your shopping in advance of the surgery and make sure you are well stocked up. If your doctor doesn't give you a recipe for some sort of fortified milk, do a search here for magic milk. That will double your protein and you will actually cook cereal in milk instead of water and then adding milk. The magic milk also is what you use when you make nonfat sugar-free pudding and so many other things that you eat after surgery. It's a very important element of healing, because protein is what you need to heal.
I ate protein bars for breakfast usually, once I was able to eat solid food. I hated protein powder or protein shakes and I would always make them into smoothies which took forever to consume because my pouch was so small. I eventually got the hang of eating and concentrating on my protein, and lately I have been giving protein shakes a shot. You can do a search here for protein shakes and you may find the recipes I've been sticking out there, sharing with everybody how I jazzed up today's protein shake or yesterday's protein shake.
Go to my profile and look at my photo albums and you will see a lot of stuff and pictures that say a lot more than what I could tell you here in a post. Welcome to the group and I hope you will be successful in all your endeavors.
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Qweensgambit
Member
I just finally got my six month blood work (I’m a year out...I know I know but I lost the lab slip and I was busy) and I’m slightly anemic. The PA called me to discuss it. I am getting mixed signals from him. First he sounded concerned and mentioned my possibly seeing a hematologist, then he went on to say it’s pretty common and I should just take some iron supplements. He said a bunch of things I didn’t understand. I think I’m going to have to call him back with a list of specific questions.