Anemia and Tired issues - Low Ferritin / Normal Iron

What's your diet like, especially with regards to red meat?

When are you taking the Hemaplex?

Have you tried any other iron supplement?

When you say 144 for iron what are you referring to? Hemoglobin? That would be ridiculously high.

The 144 is just listed as "Iron". All other things, Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, etc were all very good in the ranges provided.

In terms of diet, I eat red meat probably 2 times a week but also eat a good amount of broccoli, spinach and things like that. I would say i eat pretty well rounded. I was taking the Hemaplex typically at night before bed. I did try one other thing, some liquid ferrous sulfate mixed with OJ every morning...roughly 1-1.5 teaspoons. Should I be taking more of that? Ive heard of people taking maybe 3-4 times that amount daily. Im really low, is that what I need?

Pressed for time now. I'll post more later.

Yes, you need more daily supplemental iron. You could go back to the liquid in the morning. Other options out there as well.

But your weekly red meat intake is definitely too low. This is really important, for lots of reasons.

Your serum iron is still in normal range. Your level of the iron storage protein ferritin is dropping too low, indicating iron deficiency.

Some runners can have symptoms with ferritin levels less that 50 ng/ml, other runners are OK with no symptoms down to ~25 ng/ml, and almost all runners will have symptoms below 20 ng/ml.

You need to think about adequate elemental iron dosage and also about the possibility of blood loss from various possible causes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15377970

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8107547

Good luck Tired young guy.

A couple of things:

1) Have you also been checked for mono?

2) Avoid calcium supplements. Quit taking them all together. Inhibits iron absorption.

3) Get B-12 level checked. Check to see if you could possibly have pernicious anemia.

This is assuming you're ok spending the money on these tests.

Thanks for the advice but I am not tired.

Tired young man is the person who is tired.

Ferritin indicates actual body iron stores. It can be low from lack of intake, lack of absorption or chronic blood loss. It sounds like intake is okay, but it is true if you take with other food especially calcium this can block absorption. You can also have problems absorbing from certain drugs like ppi's can too. Best to take seperate from food. You can not absorb it if you have celiac's and not everyone has classic diarrhea with celiac's. Other inflammatory bowel diseases like ulcerative colitis or Crohn's can as well. Finally blood loss from ulcer, arteriovenous malformations, cancers can. Being young cancer less likely, but if hgb is low might need to get checked out by GI doc. Other blood loss sources rarely include blood in urine.

I would say go see a doctor to talk directly about your case.

Bump for VA Coach...

Also, here's some numbers from my most recent blood work for reference:

Globulin: 2.7 (2.0-4.0)

Transferrin: 270 (180-382)

WBC: 5.2 (3.6-11.0)

Potassium: 3.5 (3.5-5.1)

Platelet: 185 (130-400)

RBC: 5.73 (3.9-6.1)

Iron: 143 (35-155)

Hgb: 16.1 (13.5-18.0)

Hct: 48.5% (42-52%)

Glucose: 77 (70-99)

Ferritin: 20.9 (23.9-355)

Iron Sat: 38 (11-46)

My doctor specifically said he wasn't concerned with my ferritin levels but said if i wanted to get on a supplement theres a chance it could help me feel better.

I stated to really really struggle early track season a year ago. After running so terribly despite my solid winter training and a good early January. I ended up getting my ferritin tested at 4. I started to take 325mg ferrous sulfate twice a day(with B complex and vitamin C) until I got my ferritin up to like 50. I started taking it only once a day, and it had dropped to 40. I'm still taking it once a day and I may take it twice a day occasionally once next XC season startes. I'm definitely not a doctor, but I'd take everything twice a day for awhile. Maybe get a check up to make sure you don't have some other worse issue like internal bleeding.

va coach wrote:

Pressed for time now. I'll post more later.

Yes, you need more daily supplemental iron. You could go back to the liquid in the morning. Other options out there as well.

But your weekly red meat intake is definitely too low. This is really important, for lots of reasons.

How much of my liquid ferrous sulfate should I take each day? Each TSP has 44mg (244% dv).

How much red meat do you think I should eat per day/week?