Help with iron blood test results

[sabby-c]

Hello, I have my iron test results from Medichecks.

CRP HS 1.22 mg/L (0 - 3) 40.7%

Iron 25.7 umol/L (10 - 30) 78.5%

TIBC 57.1 umol/L (45 - 81) 33.6%

UIBC 31.4 umol/L (13 - 56) 42.8%

Transferrin Saturation 45 % (25 - 45) 100.0%

Ferritin 122 ug/L (30 - 332) 30.5%

I am vegetarian and gluten free.

At the moment I'm taking vitamin D3/K2 (vit D was 47), I'm also taking selenium and zinc to try to improve conversion from ft4 to ft3.

I would be grateful for advice about my iron levels and if I should start taking any supplements.

Thank you for any help you can give me, Sabrina x

[FallingInReverse]

If you are not supplementing - you should not/do not need to start!

Are you?

What’s your iron intake like via diet?

Your profile is on the high side… like… definitely do not want to increase and probably should lower slightly.

Tell us more about your iron and supplements history and we can provide more guidance.

[sabby-c in reply to FallingInReverse]

Thank you for replying, I'm only supplementing D3/K2, selenium and zinc. As I'm a vegetarian I eat food to make sure I get enough protein (eggs, peanut butter etc) maybe this is helping my iron levels too.

Sabby x

[FallingInReverse in reply to sabby-c]

It’s really unusual to have such a solid iron panel when vegetarian (inherently low iron content foods) and hypo (low stomach acid makes absorption difficult).

Our bodies do not make iron, the only way we get it is my eating it. And I am fairly certain that if you added up the iron content of your food it wouldn’t be enough to replace what you shed every day.

Do you have any past iron test results?

Amy family history of iron issues that you know of?

Out of curiosity- how are your TSH/FT4/FT3? And other vitamins? Ever had a full blood count?

[sabby-c in reply to FallingInReverse]

I'll have a look for past iron and full blood count results.

Here are my most recent results from Blue Horizon.

Vitamin D (25 OH)  47  (50-200) -2.0% L

Optimal (75-200)

Adequate (50-<75)

Insufficient (25-<50)

Deficient (<25)

Magnesium  1 (0.66-0.99) 103.0% H

C-Reactive Protein (CRP)  1.33  (≤ 5)

Ferritin  122  (13-150) 79.6%

Serum Folate 14.9  (8.83-60.8) 11.7%

Active B12  82  (37.5-150) 39.6%

TSH  4.48 (0.27-4.2) 107.1% H

Free T4 (fT4)  22 (12-22) 100.0%

Free T3 (fT3)  3.5 (3.1-6.8) 10.8%

T4:T3 Ratio  6.286

T4 Total  124 (66-181) 50.4%

Anti-Thyroglobulin Abs 127  (≤ 115) H

Anti-Thyroidperoxidase Abs 39  (≤ 34) H

Cortisol (Random) 486 (73.8-507) 6am-10am (166-507)

(I took the test just after 8am, water only and 24 hours after my last dose. I have been on 100mcg Levothyroxine since it was increased from 75mcg in early 2022 (Accord). I take it in the morning and only have water until breakfast 2 hours later).

I started supplementing with D3/K2 and plan to add Folate and B complex soon, as suggested when I posted these results.

[FallingInReverse in reply to sabby-c]

Keep us posted, and consider checking iron periodically.

Could just be that people with good iron don’t often post here, so we only see the low ones. But high iron over time is not good, and I wouldn’t want your saturation percent to go any higher at all. We’d ideally want to see it go down.

I would definitely keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t go higher.

Hopefully someone else will weigh in - your results aren’t typical for people here, so I might be missing something.

[sabby-c in reply to FallingInReverse]

thank you