On the back of my last post I consulted with my GP and he agreed to increase my levothyroxine another 12.5mg so I’m taking 75mg daily. It’s early days but I don’t feel any different 😏 also taking on board SlowDragon advice I had a full iron panel blood test. The results came in today. The notes from the doctor seem to link the high ferritin with the inflammatory marker. I’ll add a further 2 images tracking the 3 ferritin results and 3 inflammatory results I’ve had over the past few months. I have frozen shoulder (or at least that’s what I feel it is because I had it in my left shoulder in 2018) which I believe is the cause of these blood results. What I can do about the inflammation I don’t know 🤷🏽♀️ what I need advice on is how to deal with my depression? I’m done with feeling miserable! I have a 5 year old, I’m a single parent, he deserves more and I deserve to feel the joys of being his mum
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CaroMaxx
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Please note that contradictory results are common in iron panel results.
Serum iron
• 55 to 70% of the range
• higher end for men
Your level of 17% through the range is far too low suggesting that you are low in iron and could do with more.
TIBC (total iron binding capacity)
• Low in range indicates lack of capacity for additional iron
• High in range indicates body's need for supplemental iron
Your TIBC is 15% through the range i.e. is low in range suggesting that you lack the capacity for additional iron. (This is one of the commonest contradictions in iron testing.)
Saturation
• optimal is 35 to 45%
• higher end for men
Your saturation of 26.6% is lower than optimal suggesting that you need more iron.
Ferritin
• Low level virtually always indicates need for iron supplementation
• High level with low serum iron/low saturation indicates inflammation or infection
Ferritin is where the forum often diverges from the link I gave. There are various opinions on what is a healthy level of ferritin. And it can be affected by other factors apart from iron intake.
Explanation for low iron / high ferritin...
One of the common factors that will raise ferritin is inflammation / infection which then raises CRP. Iron is vital for pathogens to reproduce. This could be catastrophic. So to protect the body from infection and inflammation iron is shuttled into ferritin. Iron is stored in such a way in ferritin that pathogens can't get at it.
The body can't do without serum iron (which is "free iron") and unfortunately pathogens can steal this to help them reproduce. The body protects itself by storing as much iron in ferritin as possible and by reducing the level of "free iron" in the bloodstream (and elsewhere). The result of this is that people can become anaemic as a protective measure.
This set of circumstances is called Anaemia of Chronic Disease or Anaemia of Chronic Inflammation.
It is considered to be a bad idea to take iron in your circumstances. For example, if your infection/inflammation was caused by cancer, taking extra iron could encourage the cancer to grow. But don't get fixated on the high ferritin - it is only a small amount over the range and no doctor would pay atterntion to it.
I would suggest that your best bet is to optimise as many factors as you can, including nutrients. Optimise your thyroid treatment. See if you can improve your gut health. Optimise your cortisol and your adrenal health. The one thing that probably wouldn't help is taking iron tablets.
You might like this link, although I'm not really a fan of STTM. The author often doesn't mention units of measurement, rarely caters for non-Americans (with their different units of measurement), and rarely gives reference ranges :
Me too… absolutely fascinated (and very grateful) you can make sense of any of this… I got a little lost (overwhelmed) by the numbers but your plain explanation at the end was worth it’s weight in gold. THANK YOU
I’m around one week into eating the Zoe way to improve my gut health. I’m approximately 2 weeks into giving up gluten. I eat at 30+ varieties of plants a week with minimal UPF in my diet or sugar… I need to keep going with this and pray I can improve my gut health and overall health.
I’ve just Googled the overlap between anaemia and depression and this would explain a lot.
Is there a way to determine what pathogens I have and how I might eliminate them?
Is there a way to determine what pathogens I have and how I might eliminate them?
To be honest, I don't know.
I think if you can make yourself as healthy as possible in the ways that are under your control then your immune system might eliminate the pathogens.
Don't forget that we all need fats and protein in our diets - we would die without them. Eating complex carbs sounds great but you need fat and protein too.
Thank you 🙏🏽 I do eat lots of seeds, nuts, fish & chicken, legumes and good fats like butter and EVOO. I worry because my blood fat test results aren’t great and I’d love to lose weight rather than gain or even maintain the weight. I’ll write a separate post regarding my minerals test results. Thanks for the response and advice
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