A Thought On Supplements

[alesusy]

hello there. I've just been DX - the result of my bioopsy came in today and confirmed I'm a 3.b marsh celiac. As expected (all the bloodwork was positive).

This post is just a thought about supplements. I did ask my doc, and he said that my body will start to absorb nutrients on its own when I'm healing, and until I'm healing, my bowels would not absorb supplements anyway as they don't absorb nutrients from food. This makes sense to me - I wonder anybody had any thoughts about this?

alesusy

[kareng]

Here was my regular doctors thoughts on it and I think, for me , it made sense.

You have 16-20 feet of small intestine. It is unlikely that every square inch is too damaged to absorb anything. celiac tends to be " patchy". Even if only 20% of your intestines are absorbing nutrients, you want to make sure that 20% always has some to absorb. There are a few vitamins that are small enough to be absorbed thru the skin in your mouth. B12 is one.

[mushroom]

Some supplements are also available in liquid form which should be easier to digest. Another aid in getting the nutrients into your body is digestive enzymes. Part of the lack of absorption is that the food is not broken up enough into small chain fatty acids to pass through into the blood stream because of the negative influence gluten has on the pancreas and its output of enzymes. So supplementing with pancreatic enzymes helps break down both regular food and the supplements you take to help you get the nutrition out of them. It is a bit of a catch 22 at first but if you make enough nutrients available in the right form you will eventually start absorbing them. Some of them will undoubtedly be wasted, but in the case of something like Vitamin D, you don't want to leave your body without its availablility for too long or you are risking bone loss and lots of other negative effects. Again, the Vit. D available in gel caps in liquid form would be better absorbed, I would think, than regular tablets.

[1desperateladysaved]

My life was saved by supplements, before I knew to go gluten free. Special tests determined exactly which nutrients were needed for me. Interestingly enough, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B, were among them. They were doctor recommended supplements and a high quality product designed for max absorption.

By life saved I mean: My orthostatic blood pressure had an unhealthy curve. When I rose up after lying down the blood pressure would plummet and stay down. My blood pressure was 180/115 when resting. The supplements brought the orthostatic blood pressure to a normal curve. This meant it started low, went up as I stood, and recovered after a minute or two. Over time, my resting blood pressure came down to 110/70. I don't recommend just supplements, and not going gluten free, but high- quality- supplements, carefully, selected can do wonders.

PLease be careful with supplement selection. One can do several kinds of tests to determine their needs.

[dilettantesteph]

There is little scientific evidence for supplements helping, and they are poorly regulated. I prefer to use whole foods, but I do use two very carefully chosen supplements where I didn't have that option.

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[petitesteph]

My life was saved by supplements, before I knew to go gluten free. Special tests determined exactly which nutrients were needed for me. Interestingly enough, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B, were among them. They were doctor recommended supplements and a high quality product designed for max absorption.

By life saved I mean: My orthostatic blood pressure had an unhealthy curve. When I rose up after lying down the blood pressure would plummet and stay down. My blood pressure was 180/115 when resting. The supplements brought the orthostatic blood pressure to a normal curve. This meant it started low, went up as I stood, and recovered after a minute or two. Over time, my resting blood pressure came down to 110/70. I don't recommend just supplements, and not going gluten free, but high- quality- supplements, carefully, selected can do wonders.

PLease be careful with supplement selection. One can do several kinds of tests to determine their needs.

I strongly agree with you 1desperateladysaved - supplements were my life saver before I even knew I had a gluten intolerance. I was so low in magnesium and strangely enough b5 and a few other b vitamins that I was almost crippled completely. The lack of magnesium actually gave me an EXTREME migraine condition that worsened gradually as I got older (21 years of this!) until I was actually completely housebound. After that I had to take almost DOUBLE the amount of supplements - which gave me my life back! It was like a miracle!!!!

This actually led to finding out I was celiac! the question was, "Why am I so deficient and have to take SO MUCH via supplement to keep up?!" Answer = your intestines can't absorb it! super damaged!

Hopefully once I'm more healed, I can pull back on the dosage.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU!