Vitamin/Iron question

Some of you are really experts at the vitamin thing and I have been doing some research this morning on what I am taking.  I have a couple questions, hopefully someone can answer. 

1.  My Bariatric chewable multi vitamin says take 1 per day and it has well over double the RDA on most nutrients.  My nutritionist said to take my multi-vitamin 2x per day.  Why would I want 4x the RDA?  Do you think she is mistaken?

2.  My Bariatric multi also has 30 mg iron, it says 167% RDA. Do I still need to take a separate Iron supplement with that?

3. My Nut. also said to take my calcium supplement with my multi vitamin 2x per day (and another 2x per day on its own).  I thought you were not supposed to take calcium with iron?

I appreciate any help I can get on these questions.  I don't just want to blindly follow the Nut., to be honest I don't care for her, she does not seem to care about her job or patients and I am not always sure she knows that she is talking about.

1) Your nutritionist is almost certainly basing her recommendation on a typical multivitamin, not on specially formulated "bariatric" ones.  No, you would NOT want to take 4X the RDA.

2)  That depends on what your individual iron level is. Most menstruating women will need some additional iron. How much depends on your lab values.

3) Correct, you should not take calcium and iron together.  Take all of your calcium citrate doses separate from any iron doses.

Lora

Thank you!  I am no longer menstruating, so since the multi has 167% of the iron recommended by RDA I wonder if I can try not adding extra iron and see what my labs show??  Since  I am taking a bariatric multi vitiman do I assume it is the correct type of iron, I know there is one kind we don't absorb well.

You are probably fine to just take the multi and then see what your labs show, depending on how long it will be until you hage labs done.

I had a hysterectomy years ago, so I didn't take any separate iron for the first 4(?) years.  I noticed that my annual labs showed that my iron levels were dropping a bit every year, though, so I added some additional iron.  

I would think that the iron in a bariatric multi would be fine, but it never hurts to check.

The ASMBS says you need two times the RDA.  Your nutritionist (and I really recommend seeing  a registered dietcian, not a nutritionist) probably doesn't realize your multi has that already.

The ASMBS says menstruating women need 54 to 63 mg iron daily and everyone else needs 36 mg.  So yes, you almost certainly need more than what is in your multi.

If you take your calcium supplement with your multi, you will not absorb the iron that is in your  multi.  If your nutritionist doesn't understand that, she should not be giving nutritional advice.  however, you need to take a calcium supplement three times a day to get the 1500 mg a day the ASMBS recommends because we only absorb about 500 mg at a time.  Make sure you're taking calcium citrate, not carbonate.

Thank you, that clears up so much (the 2 people I was hoping would answer me did, yay!!).  My Nut. hands you a Xerox and whenever you ask her anything else she says "look at the hand-out."  I did ask her about the multi and she said "look at the hand out, you are supposed to take it 2x a day!"  Ugh.  I feel like I actually understand now.  Thank you to both of you. I am going to adjust my vitamin schedule accordingly :)

How many you need a day depends on how much stuff is in it.  If you use Opurity, you need one a day.  If you use Centrum, you need two a day.  If you use the Celebrate chewables, you need two a day.  If you use the Celebrate capsules, you need three a day.  If you use Bariatric Fusion, you need eight a day.  You gotta do the math, which you've done.  Apparently your nutritionist doesn't understand that.

Good grief!  It sounds like someone ELSE wrote the hand out and your nutritionist is clueless....