I thought that I’d already posted this, but obviously didn’t 🤪
My ferritin level after iron infusion went up to 544 (>300)
Have just had another test and it’s dropped to 276 (>300)
Is this normal or is it going down too quickly only a couple of months, if that, between tests
You did post it before...but no replies
You can see all your posts by looking on your profile page
healthunlocked.com/user/Pas...
What age approx are you, do you still have periods....are they heavy?
What’s your diet like, vegetarian or vegan
Are you eating high iron rich diet
Hello SlowDragon, apologies and thank you for your reply. I am 70 and eat a fair amount of meat. I would consider my diet healthy and balanced, always cook from scratch. It’s just that that I thought that one doesn’t excrete iron and wondered if my iron was dropping out again. Doctors weren’t concerned with my high result and don’t seem concerned with the latest result.
Obviously your thyroid results suggest you may bevhypothyroid...and hypothyroid patients have low vitamin levels because of poor absorption of nutrients
But I agree that seems significant drop in ferritin
Hopefully humanbean may pop along and comment
Eating iron rich foods like liver or liver pate once a week plus other red meat, pumpkin seeds and dark chocolate, plus daily orange juice or other vitamin C rich drink can help improve iron absorption
List of iron rich foods
Links about iron and ferritin
irondisorders.org/too-littl...
davidg170.sg-host.com/wp-co...
Great in-depth article on low ferritin
oatext.com/iron-deficiency-...
drhedberg.com/ferritin-hypo...
This is interesting because I have noticed that many patients with Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism, start to feel worse when their ferritin drops below 80 and usually there is hair loss when it drops below 50.
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
Thyroid disease is as much about optimising vitamins as thyroid hormones
Helpful post about iron supplements and testing
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
restartmed.com/hypothyroidi...
Post about iron supplements
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
Post discussing why important to do full iron panel test
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
Helpful to add your (approx) age on your profile
Have you had vitamin D, folate and B12 tested ...if not they need testing
Ultrasound scan of thyroid too - £150 privately if GP won’t agree
I did a finger prick test for vitamins with trivia and am expecting results on Monday. Will post soonest. Thank you again, you are so knowledgeable, as are others on this forum. So glad that I found TUK 😊
This paper has some graphs of ferritin after infusion and some sensible points in the Conclusion.
Conclusion
The presented cases with symptoms of iron deficiency anemia as examples are demonstrating that a normal full blood count is common in association with low ferritin levels that would indicate iron deficiency. It is much more important to listen to the patient's description of his/her symptoms than to use the full blood count to rule out iron deficiency. If symptoms are in accordance with iron deficiency, the patient should be considered iron deficient at least up to a serum ferritin concentration of 100 μg/L, or even much higher, if the patient has an inflammatory condition, kidney disease or fatty liver 2, 3. Iron deficiency irrespective of manifestation should always be treated (17).
The ferritin level should be controlled regularly during and after the iron administration with a sustained target ferritin of more than 100 μg/L. A marked improvement or total disappearance of symptoms should decide the duration of iron treatment. If the patient has apparently had iron deficiency for more than 5–10 years, the ferritin concentration may repeatedly drop with the reappearance of symptoms when oral (Fig. 1) or intravenous (Fig. 2) iron therapy is discontinued.
When the patient is symptomless he/she should be followed for an extended period of time to ascertain that the ferritin concentration remains stabilized, especially if the patient is a female with abundant menstruations or planning pregnancy. No blood donations should be allowed. I consider the diagnosis and management of iron deficiency without anemia as one of the greatest challenges during my 35‐year career as an internist. Furthermore, I am convinced that there is still a lot to be discovered about iron metabolism.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...
That’s very interesting, but my ferritin level was 7 before the iron infusion and I was “alarmingly anaemic “ was the way the doctor described it. I felt awful for two years before it was picked up.
And levels are dropping dramatically again ...so yes needs more investigation
My ferritin level after iron infusion went up to 544 (>300)
Have just had another test and it’s dropped to 276 (>300)
Is this normal or is it going down too quickly only a couple of months, if that, between tests
my ferritin level was 7 before the iron infusion
I know from personal experience that ferritin can drop very quickly if supplementing has stopped, although my ferritin has never been as high or dropped as quickly as yours, and I've never had an infusion.
To some extent it is actually helpful that ferritin levels drop after an infusion because having too much iron in the body is potentially toxic and can increase the risks of heart disease and cancer. This is why doctors should take haemochromatosis very seriously.
(Haemochromatosis is a genetic condition which makes people absorb far more iron from their diet than normal and they can end up with extremely high levels of ferritin - sometimes in the thousands.)
I have never seen any numbers describing how fast ferritin would normally be expected to drop after an infusion, nor do I know when the level will stop dropping. If it drops all the way to 7 again then the infusion was a waste of your time. Presumably infusions are given to people that doctors think desperately need it - but plenty of people on this forum with a ferritin below 10 have been given iron supplements in tablet form, have been refused when they asked for an infusion, and have just been left to get on with it.
Under normal circumstances healthy men and post-menopausal women will lose tiny amounts of blood in their poo. Most iron in the body is recycled in the liver by scavenging it from old blood cells.
Do you produce black poo? Do you produce anything that looks like coffee grounds in your poo? (You don't have to tell me the answer.) Very dark red, maroon or black poo is what results if it contains partially or completely digested blood. The higher up the digestive tract the blood comes from the darker the blood will be because the more it will have been digested. If blood comes from the stomach and goes through the entire gut it can look like it contains black coffee grounds.
One complication of the "black poo" sign is that taking iron supplements also causes black poo and this is normal. Just think back to what you were producing before your infusion to see whether it is relevant.
Before giving you an iron infusion I would have thought that your doctor should have got your poo tested for blood, (but I have no idea if that is standard practice) which just involves supplying a poo sample to be sent to a lab for testing.
...
If you eat meat and still lose iron then it is possible you don't digest meat very well. Two of the main requirements for digesting meat and other proteins are (as far as I know) stomach acid to break the meat and other food down, and pepsin which is actually produced in the stomach lining to help break up protein.
The problem we all have is that hypothyroidism reduces the amount of stomach acid people produce. Getting older also reduces stomach acid. I read once that by the time people are 80 they are unlikely to produce any stomach acid at all. Having too little stomach acid can cause all sorts of damage to the gut, so perhaps Pepsin production reduces in older people or hypothyroid people.
To overcome the issue of low stomach acid and too little pepsin there are supplements people can buy without prescription (Betaine HCl + Pepsin - Betaine HCl is artificial stomach acid) . Please read the following links :
healthygut.com/articles/hyp...
healthygut.com/articles/3-t...
healthygut.com/articles/how...
healthygut.com/articles/4-c...
...
To maintain your iron and ferritin levels you will probably need to supplement permanently. The difficulty comes in deciding when to start and how much to take. Where you give your results you also mention (> 300). That doesn't look like a normal reference range at all. Ferritin (in the UK) usually has a range for women of something like 13 - 150 or 30 - 200, but it can vary wildly.
Optimal levels of ferritin are mid-range or a little bit higher.
For other iron-related levels see this link :
rt3-adrenals.org/Iron_test_...
If your doctor won't test your ferritin and iron again, then you can get tested with a finger-prick test privately using this test :
medichecks.com/iron-tests/i...
You can get 10% off the price using the discount code on this link :
thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/index....
People can buy prescription-strength iron supplements without a prescription from pharmacies. See this link I wrote for another member :
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
A couple of other links you might find helpful :
healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
Good luck. 
Hi Humanbean, no blood in the poo that I’ve noticed and colonoscopy was completely clear. Having said that, a couple of weeks ago, vomited a little into a tissue after acid reflux and it was black which turned brown. Made an appointment and took the tissue along and doctor agreed that it was blood. They advised me to return as an emergency if it happened again, put me on omeprezole and explained about coffee grounds. It hasn’t happened again, but left me wondering 🤔
Omeprazole (a PPI - Proton Pump Inhibitor) shuts off stomach acid almost completely, if you are still producing any, which is not good news for someone who struggles to absorb nutrients from their food.
bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/omepra...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto...
It has its uses though. If you have frequent heartburn or acid reflux your oesophagus might be inflamed, and omeprazole should help with that. It also helps with gastritis (inflamed stomach), inflammation in the intestines and colon, and gives ulcers a chance to heal...
The problem with doctors who prescribe PPIs is that they often don't think about when or whether they should stop prescribing. Some people who get this prescribed might need it for only a month or two, but they keep on taking it permanently.
It would help if they (doctors) actually tried to find out what caused the problem in the first place, but they very rarely do this. Many people get told (or they just assume?) that they have too much stomach acid, whereas they are much more likely to have too little.
Have you been tested for Helicobacter Pylori (H. Pylori)? If not you should be.
bnf.nice.org.uk/treatment-s...
There are some people who might need PPIs permanently:
1) People with hiatus hernias.
2) People who take NSAIDs e.g. aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonst...
3) People with a condition called Barrett's Oesophagus
No doubt there are other groups of people who need PPIs, but I don't remember who they are.
If someone has indigestion and nothing else there are better ways of dealing with it than taking PPIs.
Understanding how the gut works is well worth learning, if you are interested :
If you go to this link :
chriskresser.com/what-every...
and put in an email address in the box that says Want to learn more about Heartburn and GERD? to download the e-book referred to , it is well worth doing.
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