Unexplained tachycardia

[Mozzymoo22]

These are my latest results. I'm really struggling with tachycardia at the moment. Any comments would be really helpful. I take 2 grains of ndt and 10mcg of t3

[diogenes Remembering]

From your results and looking at the literature, it would seem that from the high ferritin, you may be suffering from iron overload. This paper shows the linkage between iron overload and tachycardia. It is aimed at patients with thalassemia but will be just as relevant to others. The whole paper is accessible.

Am J Hematol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2013 Mar 30.

Am J Hematol. 2012 Feb; 87(2): 139–144.

Published online 2011 Nov 4. doi: 10.1002/ajh.22205

PMCID: PMC3306475

NIHMSID: NIHMS340231

PMID: 22052662

Electrocardiographic consequences of cardiac iron overload in thalassemia major

Jon Detterich,1 Leila Noetzli,1 Fred Dorey,2 Yaniv Bar-Cohen,1 Paul Harmatz,3 Thomas Coates,4 and John Wood1

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Extremely high CRP

Is GP investigating

[Mozzymoo22 in reply to SlowDragon]

I've got an appointment with my gp tomorrow

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Mozzymoo22]

High ferritin needs investigation too obviously

Iron looks low

humanbean may pop along and comment on iron and ferritin

Personally I need higher Ft4. Have you tried adding levothyroxine to NDT rather than T3

[Mozzymoo22 in reply to SlowDragon]

I've never tried that. My ferritin has been high for years and no one has ever investigated it. I did manage to lower it from 600to were it is now. I used iron block. But my iron is quite low so I don't use it now

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Mozzymoo22]

Exactly....your iron is low and ferritin high

Could simply be due to inflammation...but needs investigation

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

racgp.org.au/afp/2012/decem...

[Mozzymoo22 in reply to SlowDragon]

Seen my gp and all she's concerned about is my low tsh. 👹. I give up

[humanbean]

CRP 59.1 mg/L Range < 3

Iron 11.7 (10 - 30) 8.5% of the way through the range i.e. too low

UIBC 36.8 (24.2 - 70.1) 5.7% of the way through the range i.e. low in range

TIBC 49 (41 - 77) 22.2% of the way through the range i.e. lower than optimal

Ferritin 399 (13 - 150) Way over the range

Transferrin Saturation 24 (20 - 55) Low in range (this result is already a percentage)

Optimal results are given here for some of the results in an iron panel :

rt3-adrenals.org/Iron_test_...

Iron : Optimal is 55% - 70% of the way through the range = 21 - 24 so yours is too low.

UIBC : I'm not sure of an optimal level for this, so I assume mid-range is a safe bet.

TIBC : I'm not sure of an optimal level for this, so I assume mid-range is a safe bet.

Ferritin : Optimal is around mid-range or a little bit over i.e. approx 80 - 120 or 80 - 130.

Transferrin Saturation : Optimal is 35% - 45% so yours is too low.

...

This link has a very useful table at the bottom describing some conditions that can cause various iron-related problems :

davidg170.sg-host.com/wp-co...

The only one that matches your results is Anaemia of Chronic Disease (or Chronic Inflammation) which presents with low serum iron, high ferritin, low transferrin saturation, low TIBC, all of which you have.

The fact that your CRP is so high would back up a suggestion of Anaemia of Chronic Disease (ACD).

For information on ACD and iron overload :

irondisorders.org/anemia-of...

And a useful link to help explain how ACD arises :

See page 8 : web.archive.org/web/2020021...

irondisorders.org/wp-conten...

...

Some suggestions :

1) Get a Full Blood Count (FBC) done. Hopefully your doctor will do an FBC for you, but make sure you get a copy of the results and reference ranges. If my suggestion of ACD is right then I would expect your haemoglobin to be low in range or below range, and your MCV (Mean Cell Volume) to be low in range or below range. If you have low vitamin B12 and/or low folate as well as your iron problems then your MCV might be mid-range (ish).

2) You can get an FBC done privately with a finger-prick test :

medichecks.com/products/ful...

3) An FBC will show your haemoglobin and MCV (both mentioned above), but also includes some other results which may be affected by iron. And if you have a bacterial or viral infection (which would explain your high CRP) it might show up as a high level of Lymphocytes.

4) Some causes of high CRP are given in these links :

patient.info/doctor/acute-p...

patient.info/treatment-medi...

labtestsonline.org.uk/tests...

There are so many causes of high CRP, and I don't know how doctors try to identify the cause:

Various gut diseases e.g. Crohn's Disease or Ulcerative Colitis

Various forms of arthritis

Bacterial or viral infections

Lung diseases e.g. COPD

Parasites

Liver disease

Inflamed gallbladder

Diabetes

and probably many more...

Please note I am not a doctor and have no medical training.