Had a blood test at my GP after a 3 month course of 305mg Ferrous Fumarate and got results this morning
Serum ferritin level: 30 ng/ml [30 - 150];
Note raised CRP. The Ferritin value may be lower than this once; the acute phase response is over.; Ferritin 15-30ug/L may suggest depletion of iron stores.;
Serum C reactive protein level: 8 mg/L [0 - 5] - Above high reference limit
Should I be pushing GP to continue the Ferrous Fumarate as Ferritin is very bottom of range at 30? And could be lower due to the raised CRP?
Other Iron results were:
Serum transferrin level: 2.82 g/L [2 - 3.6]
Serum iron level: 17.6 umol/l [5.8 - 34.5]
Transferrin saturation index: 25 % [15 - 50]
Or with the other Iron results being okay is the Ferritin of 30 not a problem?
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PS89
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Hi SlowDragon thank you for your reply. Asked GP about continuing with the prescribed Ferrous Fumarate and they've not said they will continue the prescription. Just said Dr has seen results and will retest in 6 months, so looks like I might have to source my own iron tablets
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
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.
Thank you for your incredible patience while you have been awaiting the outcome of our ferritin reference range review. We conducted this with Inuvi lab, which has now changed the reference ranges to the following:
Females 18 ≤ age < 40. 30 to 180
Females 40 ≤ age < 50. 30 to 207
Females 50 ≤ age < 60. 30 to 264l
Females Age ≥ 60. 30 to 332
Males 18 ≤ age < 40 30 to 442
Males Age ≥ 40 30 to 518
The lower limits of 30 are by the NICE threshold of <30 for iron deficiency. Our review of Medichecks data has determined the upper limits. This retrospective study used a large dataset of blood test results from 25,425 healthy participants aged 18 to 97 over seven years. This is the most extensive study on ferritin reference ranges, and we hope to achieve journal publication so that these ranges can be applied more widely.
Had a blood test at my GP after a 3 month course of 305mg Ferrous Fumarate
How well did you tolerate the ferrous fumarate 305mg?
And how often were you taking it?
Ferrous fumarate is one of the iron salts. There are three that doctors prescribe and all three can be bought in pharmacies in the UK without prescription. They are ferrous fumarate, ferrous sulfate, and ferrous gluconate. I would never recommend ferrous sulfate - very few people tolerate it, but you could always try it if nothing else works.
To buy any of the iron salts you need a pharmacist's permission. They may quiz you about why you need it. If that happens just say that you are iron deficient (or anaemic) and your doctor has told you to buy your own iron supplements. I was refused once, but I suspect the pharmacist may have been at lunch. I didn't kick up a stink - I just went to another pharmacy and asked there.
Iron salts aren't usually expensive. A box of 84 tablets of ferrous fumarate 210mg cost me about £7 the last time I bought them.
Info on dosing for each of the iron salts - note - brand isn't important :
Having told you about iron salts, I would actually suggest you first try heme/haem iron (Three Arrows) instead. People generally find it more tolerable and more successful at raising their iron levels than the iron salts. But it is more expensive and has to be imported from the USA, and one or two people have not been successful with it, and had to go back to iron salts.
Raising iron can be a very long and tedious business. It took me nearly two years to raise my ferritin to mid-range (from about 20 up to about 80) with ferrous fumarate 210mg, but I didn't know about haem iron at the time. My serum iron stayed low. After I got my ferritin to mid-range I just aimed to keep it there. I took a maintenance dose of iron for five years before my serum iron started to rise. Once I was happy with all my iron panel results I stopped supplementing. I still monitor my iron by doing an iron panel once or twice a year.
The biggest danger with iron is that people will supplement, their ferritin will barely rise, and behind the scenes their serum iron is rocketing upwards - but the patient doesn't know because they never test serum iron. That doesn't happen often, but when it does it can be dangerous and make patients feel very ill. This is why finding out how well you absorb iron is important and why you need to test the occasional iron panel, rather than just ferritin.
The body has no means of getting rid of excess iron and ferritin apart from losing a miniscule amount in faeces. So if people supplement too much they have to have therapeutic phlebotomy i.e. they have to have blood taken and disposed of. If they don't do this then excess iron can deposit itself in any of the organs. This is what happens in haemochromatosis in people who absorb iron too easily.
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Updated blood results
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