From the time I got my J Pouch in 1992, I was told by my surgeon that it will be a good idea to permanently take chewable multiple vitamins, this because they said my nutritional absorption may be different after surgery. At the time Flintstones was recommended to me. Since that time, in 2010, I had a bone density scan and was discovered to have osteopenia which was blamed on prolonged use of Prednisone. I was also discovered to be on the low end of what is acceptable on vitamin D. So I started taking calcium and vitamin D supplements and fish oil as well as the chewable vitamins (I now take Centrum for adults 50+).
My blood labs have been pretty good since then, but per my PCP, we are going to do a repeat bone density scan next year to assess where I am with the osteopenia. It was mostly in my left, non-dominant forearm.
The J Pouch is a part of your ileum - more correctly it is made out of a part of your ileum which, but for the surgery, would have been absorbing nutrients moving along in a straight line down your ileum. But now that part of ileum is a pouch storing stool, and in my case it's also inflamed. So it is theoretically impossible, as a matter of basic science and physics, for your shortened ileum with J Pouch after surgery to absorb nutrients as well or as efficiently as the intact ileum prior to surgery. It isn't the same ileum that once was, inside of any of us. And that portion of it used to construct the J Pouch cannot be processing nutrients as efficiently, if it is diseased and is also storing stool. I always assumed that this was the factual basis for the advice I got from my surgeon.
