I love red meat. I wish that was all I needed to do!DunningKruger said:
Who has had low ferritin and what did you do about it?
- Thread starter jason370
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I just received it today. I have a really good vitamin C I take. Good to know not to take it at the same time as calcium. Thanks so much for the advice!FlowerFairy said:
You are very welcome- these are all things I learned either via nursing, weight loss surgery or working for an endocrinologist. If it can make someone’s life easier, I’ll tell them!laansasa said:
I really appreciate it! My endocrinologist and PCP are terrible. Only my radiologist is good but he is limited to what he can do. He does order labs the other docs won't if I ask him but can't do follow ups on labwork results since it isn't his job, but he tries.FlowerFairy said:
Oh I was extremely annoyed when I found out I had been taking ferrous sulfate 3 pills 3x/day when I anatomically cannot absorb it- for 10 YEARS! It took seeing a hematologist to learn about polysaccharide iron. I wonder constantly when I see geriatric patients on FeSO4 when their acid production is too low to benefit from it. When I worked hospice, since we never covered iron anyway, I’d tell them about polysaccharide iron and let them decide.laansasa said:
A male with no obvious nutritional causes for low iron needs to have it investigated. My low iron is very clear as weight loss made my cycle go a bit nutso and I now get to periodically bleed for multiple weeks at a time.
I've tried a bunch of forms but now I'm on Ritual Iron Bisglycinate taken every other day. I thought their "pretty" pills were a gimmick but my lab results show they do indeed work better than even other bisglycinate pills. Much higher cost
. There's many people making a big deal about needing heme iron out there but I'm getting the best results from these non-heme ones.
I take them every other day first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and then give it at least another hour before I eat anything. There are just so many things that interfere with absorption I don't want to bother with it. I take vitamin C or a vitamin C food with my meals. You can have some pretty strong iron absorption blocking factors on board and vitamin C makes it a non-problem.
I'm at the point where I get very irritated with doctors consistently prescribing the hardest to stomach, lowest absorption forms of iron taken in the least effective way. Anemia and iron deficiency is very common. There is no reason they should be so incompetent at treating it.
I've tried a bunch of forms but now I'm on Ritual Iron Bisglycinate taken every other day. I thought their "pretty" pills were a gimmick but my lab results show they do indeed work better than even other bisglycinate pills. Much higher cost
. There's many people making a big deal about needing heme iron out there but I'm getting the best results from these non-heme ones.I take them every other day first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and then give it at least another hour before I eat anything. There are just so many things that interfere with absorption I don't want to bother with it. I take vitamin C or a vitamin C food with my meals. You can have some pretty strong iron absorption blocking factors on board and vitamin C makes it a non-problem.
I'm at the point where I get very irritated with doctors consistently prescribing the hardest to stomach, lowest absorption forms of iron taken in the least effective way. Anemia and iron deficiency is very common. There is no reason they should be so incompetent at treating it.
I've had the same experience with my doctor not knowing a thing about supplementing iron.CathyGoesFar said:A male with no obvious nutritional causes for low iron needs to have it investigated. My low iron is very clear as weight loss made my cycle go a bit nutso and I now get to periodically bleed for multiple weeks at a time.
I've tried a bunch of forms but now I'm on Ritual Iron Bisglycinate taken every other day. I thought their "pretty" pills were a gimmick but my lab results show they do indeed work better than even other bisglycinate pills. Much higher cost
I take them every other day first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and then give it at least another hour before I eat anything. There are just so many things that interfere with absorption I don't want to bother with it. I take vitamin C or a vitamin C food with my meals. You can have some pretty strong iron absorption blocking factors on board and vitamin C makes it a non-problem.
I'm at the point where I get very irritated with doctors consistently prescribing the hardest to stomach, lowest absorption forms of iron taken in the least effective way. Anemia and iron deficiency is very common. There is no reason they should be so incompetent at treating it.
I wanted to donate blood at the bloodbank and my HB was 5.3. That's when I found out I was severely anemic. Yes i was tired but also taking care of 2 young children and didn' t know something was wrong.
I had more bloodwork done and my GP wanted to give me iron supplements. I did my research before the appointment and asked if I could take a double dose of iron bysglicinate instead of the other kind he prescribed. The doctor AND the apothecary could not answer if the iron bisglycinate was the same as their standard protocol!
They advised to follow the protocol (I hate protocols because every body is different) and I refused.
Now my ferritin is very very slowly increasing but having a smaller stomach (bariatric sleeve gastrectomy) is not helping.
I love this forum and everybody helping eachother learning new things!
I just want to repeat and emphasise the message, as nearly all these posts are about supplemental iron, that unless you are a menstruating female , iron deficiency needs to be investigated. Or at minimum have a doctor make the assessment of whether it is needed or not.
The reason this is important is that many gastrointestinal cancers present as anemia or low iron levels, due to low grade bleeding from colon or stomach cancer. This is definitely not the most likely cause , but must at least be considered and investigated if the person is in the right age/sex group for this to be a reasonable possibility. Treating this presentation of a gut cancer with iron is how you get to end stage disease before it gets diagnosed. Things like peptic ulcers or coeliac disease also need to be diagnosed.
Most doctors ordering the test are going to follow a low ferritin up with what they think is required, and this will be very different depending on age and sex. There are a very large number of reasons iron stores can be low, but treating it only happens after you know why it is low. And then you can debate what iron replacement options are best.
The reason this is important is that many gastrointestinal cancers present as anemia or low iron levels, due to low grade bleeding from colon or stomach cancer. This is definitely not the most likely cause , but must at least be considered and investigated if the person is in the right age/sex group for this to be a reasonable possibility. Treating this presentation of a gut cancer with iron is how you get to end stage disease before it gets diagnosed. Things like peptic ulcers or coeliac disease also need to be diagnosed.
Most doctors ordering the test are going to follow a low ferritin up with what they think is required, and this will be very different depending on age and sex. There are a very large number of reasons iron stores can be low, but treating it only happens after you know why it is low. And then you can debate what iron replacement options are best.
My endo put me on palafer 2x daily. Its super gentle of my sensitive bypass stomach. I take it with blood builders and vitamin C. Im still on the lower end, but not a 4, like last year when my blood literally looked brown and murky...
Yes! This is sooooo important! I totally agree with you!lessthanhalf said:
Never just start supplementing iron!
Yes they check your bowel movements first (fun to scoop at home
) and if there is any blood found I believe they order a colonoscopy or something. For me it was a relieve that wasn't necessary it was just heavy periods and adenomyosis caused by inflammation by a copper IUD. Ladies: when in doubt have it checked by a specialist!First find out the cause of your low ferritin. Mine was at a 4. I was referred to a hematologist who insisted I get a colonoscopy, endoscopy, and a full gyno workup. I had already done all these by the time I saw him, and was confident it was from heavy periods. He still wanted me to get a capsule endoscopy to see if the other tests missed anything. I was scheduled for a hysterectomy, so I put off the capsule endoscopy. I got several iron infusions, but my ferritin was back at 4 after 6 months. I finally got a hysterectomy and more iron infusions after the surgery. A year later, my levels are normal. However, had they gone down again I would have definitely done the capsule endoscopy. Make an appointment with a GI and and a hematologist. Good luck and hope this gets resolved soon!
I've also had my ferritin as low as 4. Had to do iron infusions just about every year since. I agree with other posts though, if you are a male you definitely need to have that checked out. Best of luck to you!
Yeah I wouldn't do that. I'd just head over to the lab techs house while drinking my second cup of morning coffee.RaveBaddie said:Yes they check your bowel movements first (fun to scoop at home
Yeah yeah yeah I meant 'check your stool'.Rolltide61 said:
English is not my first language
My feratin was 4 - I had an iron transfusion and felt MUCH better afterwards. right after the transfusion it was like 20 and now it's 11 but they won't transfuse me again until it hits 5 which is pissing me off. Idk why I don't have iron in me, it's weird. None of the iron pills I've tried have helped.
Mine was 11. I fixed it by getting a Mirena which stopped the (heavy) periods entirely. Problem solved.
I know this wasn't your intention, but I feel compelled to say that somehow I feel like women are getting the short end of the medical stick here. Is it not possible for menstruating females to get colon or stomach cancer? We're just going to only look into it for men, eh?lessthanhalf said:
Anyway, I'm mostly supremely annoyed with paying over $800/mo for so. many. years. for medical insurance that gets me one appointment a year with a PA who doesn't care why my iron and ferritin are incredibly low and I have to buy my peptides on the grey market. It sometimes spills over.
You are of course correct. But in terms of the probabilities, a 15-45 yo female with low iron, the most common cause is going to be menses related, they just need more iron because of this, , so it gets depleted much more often, and obviously this is not the case in men, so a more serious cause is substantially more likely in men or non menstruating females. But this type of probabalistic logic will cause women with early GI cancers to be missed for longer. But you cannot do every test in every patient, that has its own set of consequences like false positives, so tests are more justified when the probability of finding a treatable cause is high enough to justify the costs and possible risks. I am not sure ideal answers exist for this type of problem. And yes the US does tend to have pretty ordinary primary care and preventive medicine, unless you are wealthy.
Was going to comment the same thing. Anemia can be something very serious which is best evaluated by your Dr.lessthanhalf said:
Whole or red blood donations are also a common contributor.
With all that being said, when I got low iron from blood donations, I found Naturesplus hema-plex iron supplement to be the best to boost my iron levels verified with blood testing.
[archived internal link]
Have you donated blood recently?jason370 said:
I am on TRT, have been donating regularly for years. Timing of blood work was 1 week after my last notation.
It pretty much explains the delta between iron and ferritin for me.
Also tells me I need to dial back on the donations as I don’t have any TRT related issues that actually require the donation.
FWIW, I uploaded all my bloodwork, pharma schedule (dosage and frequency), workout history, blood donation history, weigh-in history into Claude. Asked it to “assess”.
Any anomalies in my data were pretty easily explained, things I need to focus on, things that were a result of exercise/timing and etc.
Was a fantastic way to prep for discussion with the Dr. who will likely only see the blood data 5 mins before he/she sees me, won’t bother asking all the details for the complete picture was able to Laos
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