Blood result help please. low ferritin & high haemoglobin plus other results.

[StillEverHopeful]

Hi The lovely folk over at Thyroid UK said you may be able to help me understand my results regarding low ferritin and linked results. Before I post results I'll give you a little history.

I have been diagnosed as Hypothyroid and am working at getting all cofactors to optimum At first diagnosis - ranges in brackets

(Aug 2016) my ferritin was 15 (23-300) Hb 15.2 (12-25) and RBC 5.43 (3.8-4.8)

I was prescribed iron tablets and struggle to get my ferritin to stay above 70 - it dips rapidly if I stop supplements ( Thyroid UK recommend 70 as minimum for medication to work well)

April 2018 I had a private blood test re thyroid and the results (minus the thyroid stuff) are

Active B12 171 (25.10-165) I had been supplementing with Better You B12

Serum Folate 5.68 (2.19-50) Thyroid UK commented this was low

25 OH Vitamin D 68.4 (50 -200) Have started supplementing as lab report advised to.

Ferritin 72.8 (13-150)

May 2018 gp wanted to diagnose chronic fatigue so did a slew of blood tests that when I phone for results was told nothing wrong but when I got a print out I am below range for thyroid (t3) and T4 could be improved so I have that battle for more thyroid medication.

I am hoping you could advise me on the iron /anaemia aspects

Fasting Full Blood Count :

Total white blood count 5.9 10*9/L (4.0- 10.0)

RBC count 5.48 10*12/L (3.8 - 4.8) above high reference limit

Haemoglobin concentration 150g/l (120.00-150.00)

Haemocrit0.441 (0.36 - 0.46)

Mean Cell Volume 81fL (83.0-101.0) below low reference limit

Mean cell haemoglobin level 27.4pg (27.0- 32.0)

Nucleated red blood cell count 0.01 10*9/l

I can provide other results but don't think they apply to this.

Thank you in advance for your help. x

[Gambit62 Administrator]

what's showing up in the above is iron deficient anaemia - smaller red blood cells.

No real evidence of a B12 absorption problem

Folate is quite responsive to diet so difficult to evaluate just on one result.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are quite common with hypothyroidism - iron usually the first to manifest. There are a number of ways in which hypothyroidism can affect absorption

most common cause of high RBC is dehydration

This forum is actually about an autoimmune condition that leads to problems absorbing B12 but can also affect other vitamins and minerals - there is something like a 40% chance of someone with PA developing hashi's .... and estimates in studies vary from 10-40% on people with hashi's developing PA ... but this is far from being the only way in which hypothyroidism can cause absorption problems.

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to Gambit62]

Hope you can get your GP to look at what is going on with T3

[StillEverHopeful in reply to Gambit62]

Thank you so much for your help. 😊Rather glad that PA is not likely to be another issue to deal with.

I have appointment with GP next week so am Still Ever Hopeful.

Should I be questioning him about low ferritin and upper range haemoglobin or where I should post the question.

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to StillEverHopeful]

MCV is clearly below range, MCH is towards the bottom.

Ferritin is another measure of iron status - protein that binds to iron.

My conclusion would be that you have an absorption problem, and that is knocking on to your blood, making you anaemic - which won't help.

Folate may become an issue. Supplementing B12 (presume you are using high dose) is a problem when it comes to identifying a problem. Your serum levels - going from the active B12 is currently over range - I'd start to cut back if I was you.

[StillEverHopeful in reply to Gambit62]

Thanks again. I stopped taking B12 but now have to decide if I should take a good B complex ( which will contain B12) I guess the question is “to B or not to B” ! - I’ll take that question back to the thyroid pages. Thanks so much for your help.