I went to my gp last week and requested a referral for an iron infusion. I said I’d pay for a private haematology initial consultation if necessary.
he’s referred me via nhs but I had to have up to date iron tests..
My ferritin mid June was 32. I had been taking three arrows iron for one month, and the level has raised three points. This latest test taken 6/8 showed my ferritin had doubled to 64. I’d done nothing different in addition to the heme iron I’ve been making chicken liver pate. I’m confused it only jumped three points after first test and then Doubled for the next one six weeks later! I did forget to leave a whole week of no vitamin B so only had 3/4 days without, would that affect my iron reading, or is my body finally responding well to the iron tablets. I’m now waiting to hear if the nhs will accept giving me an infusion 🤞 do I feel any better for this? I do have days when I feel more energy which is great but when I do more, the fibro can kick in!
Any thoughts on ferritin level changes? I suspect it’s the highest it’s been in an extremely long time. If the level is correct it bodes well for what an infusion can do, I just hope they will offer me one! Thanks for your feedback! 💜
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Starseed56
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Have you recently had an infection ? my ferritin shot up from 10 to 130, and when I queried this with my GP, was told it can happen with an infection......and I was recovering from a really bad chest infection.
Hello, thanks for your quick reply. I did have a really awful stomach bug which affected me badly. Could this have made the difference? It started four weeks prior to the test I think and lasted best part of a week. None of the other levels rose! Some dropped!
Have you started taking any supplements or medicines which contain biotin? Biotin can affect the testing process for lots of tests and cause unreliable results. And to make things worse it doesn't always increase results it can decrease them too, so they are really unreliable.
An infection will cause the body to store much more iron in ferritin than usual, while at the same time your serum iron and haemoglobin will reduce, making you more likely to be anaemic than usual. But once the infection clears the body will release some of your iron from your ferritin, increasing serum iron and haemoglobin.
So, yes, an infection could have doubled your ferritin.
I should also have mentioned that a ferritin level of 64 (assuming that units of measurement are micrograms/L) is not very high. It is often suggested that people with thyroid disease need a level of 90 - 110 mcg/L to feel at their best.
Thanks for that humanbean makes a lot of sense. I take the Thorne Bcomplex as recommended on here. My ferritin had been rock bottom for years hence now I realise it’s importance am doing my best to improve things. I’m aiming for 90/100 ferritin level. 🙏💜
When people have a serum iron level much higher in the range than their ferritin level the proportion of serum iron to ferritin can be altered by optimising B12 and folate. But it does require people to take B12 and folate in the right form.
Taking folic acid and cyanocobalamin must be avoided and instead people should take methylfolate and methylcobalamin. When someone has results like yours (high iron and low ferritin) it can often be caused by a methylation problem.
Doctors often prescribe huge doses of folic acid to patients who are pregnant. But if the patient cannot metabolise it well because of an MTHFR problem it can leave them with low levels of folate despite what their blood tests are telling them.
So it is really, really important to take supplements which provide "methyl groups" rather than taking folic acid and cyanocobalamin when you are pregnant. And the obvious ones are methylfolate and methylcobalamin. People who have MTHFR problems can metabolise methylfolate and methylcobalamin. People who don't have MTHFR problems can metabolise them too.
One of the biggest problems with reading about folic acid and folate is that lots of authors are not precise when it comes to distinguishing between them. The link I gave above does a better job than most but I did think that in one or two spots they did confuse them. (But I could have got confused too.)
To give you an idea of optimal iron results this is useful :
Normal ferritin levels for women are between 20 and 200 ng/mL. According to some experts, ferritin levels of at least 40 ng/ml are required to stop hair loss, while levels of at least 70 ng/ml are needed for hair regrowth. The optimal ferritin level for thyroid function is between 90-110 ng/ml.
When I said earlier that you should give up iron temporarily I was talking about only for a week or two just to lower your serum iron a little bit. But since you are pregnant I wouldn't give it up longer than that. Hopefully, with some methylfolate and methylcobalamin on board when you start taking iron again your ferritin will rise more than your serum iron.
In the first link I gave in this reply it has a section you should read entitled "Drawbacks of FA" where FA is folic acid. It also mentions "unmetabolised folic acid" which is mentioned with the acronym UMFA. There is also a section on "Averting Birth Defects" which you should read.
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Ferritin test
Low ferritin again
Why won't the NHS give me an iron infusion?
Getting Ferritin up to a good level
