My Iron Levels are on a roller coaster :(

Do you clean of the counters before you use them?

What I've been doing is only using my cutting board or pot, and if my ingredients hit the counter, throwing it. :-\ I probably should have been wiping them down better, because they do look really crummy most of the time.

Could cross contamination be enough to inhibit iron absorption even though I'm not back to having almost diarrhea ?

Have you been tested for Celiac?

Why not go back to the slow Fe?

Your eyelids are getting heavy wrote:

Why not go back to the slow Fe?

Do you think Wegmans brand is different than slow Fe enough to account for this drop?

Sounds like your gut is OK so it stands to reason that the different form of Fe might not be absorbing as well.

My ferritin has hovered around 20-30 my whole career, I would love to experience trainng in the 60+ range, but my gut is pretty bad.

A few things:

1) I don't usually trust generic store brands when it comes to vitamins. They just aren't as accountable as a major brand. I'm not saying they don't have any iron in them, but they might not have the right amount, or perhaps they use calcium carbonate as a binder (more on that later), etc. SlowFe probably wouldn't make those kind of mistakes. So go back to SlowFe.

2) If you are gluten intolerant, you need to be more careful with your cooking. Just talking to your roommates and saying "look I'm allergic to wheat, can you clean up the counter more often?" will help.

3) Watch what you are eating in the few hours after you take your iron. Anything with calcium in it inhibits iron absorption (to a surprising extent: eating a cheeseburger gives you way less iron than a regular hamburger!), and avoid tea. Taking iron right before bed is great because you don't have to worry about that.

4) take your iron with 500mg of vitamin C in tablet form. It promotes absorption.

5) talk to your doctor about new options. Perhaps your body simply doesn't absorb the iron sulfate and you should try a different form of iron. There are other iron supplements out there, even an iron injection.

6) monitor your iron more often. You may need to have a "test period" where you get it checked every few WEEKS to make sure what you are doing is working.

I'll check about monitoring it every few weeks...my school doctor probably would not do that, but I'll have a few weeks over winter break.

Thanks so much.

Keep us posted. I'd be interested in your findings.

good luck

Best iron supplement I have used is, don't laugh, Geritol ($2.00 a bottle at walmart)

I've been taking Ferrex 150 twice a day for the last week or so. That's 300 mg of elemental iron. The first night I did that just before going to sleep with a 1000 mg Vitamin C pill, and I had serious stomach aches all night. So I've been taking the two pills and Vitamin C with dinner now (a dairy free dinner of course).

Do any of you know if taking iron with a meal increases or decreases absorption? I'm wondering if my diet is too fibrous and if that prevents absorption...

"Tannins (found in tea), calcium, polyphenols, and phytates (found in legumes and whole grains) can decrease absorption of nonheme iron [1,19-24]. Some proteins found in soybeans also inhibit nonheme iron absorption [1,25]."

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/iron/

I've had great results with Blood Builder.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/supplements/blood_builder.php

Taking iron with food usually limits absorption because so many things block it out. I'll take mine when I randomly wake up during the middle of the night. I've had really good success with this pill and it's really cheap as well:

http://www.vitacost.com/NSI-Ferrochel-Iron-with-B-Vitamins

That one looks great too. Those B-vits made all the difference in my absorption of iron.

I agree--looks like a good supplement. Definitely, some work better than others.

I tried a bunch of different iron supplements and this is the one that worked best for me. It also has B12, C, and folic acid.

http://www.nationalnutrition.ca/detail.aspx?ID=112

. I took 2-3 a day for a while and my ferritin level went from 11-13ish to 38 or so which was a big deal. lol

Eventually, I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and changed my diet and got off the iron supplements. I had to replace some pans and utensils and have gotten sick from cross-contamination.

Definitely, someone routinely making a mess with wheat flour in my kitchen would make me ill! gluten is sticky.

Good luck!

i take Feosol 65mg (~300+% DV) at night before bed with Orange Juice(no calcium). havent had my blood retested yet though.

Good news....just got my levels checked. Ferritin went up to 32. Long way up to go, but at least I know it's going back up!

My hemoglobin and hematocrit were lower than before XC (doc didn't check them last time, so i don't know if that's been improving too or not.)

Do you know if hemoglobin/hematocrit tend to go up as ferritin does? Do iron pills make those go up too?

Ferritin is an acute phase reactant. No wonder your levels arte "all over the place." It will swing naturally.

What is your hgb/hct? That's the most important part of the equation.

Dr. Dent wrote:

Ferritin is an acute phase reactant. No wonder your levels arte "all over the place." It will swing naturally.

What is your hgb/hct? That's the most important part of the equation.

hemoglobin indicates how much iron you have "right now." So people with full fledged anemia will have low hemoglobin and probably low ferritin. But runners can have normal hemoglobin and low ferritin and still suffer poor performances. Ferritin is an iron storage protein that is consumed when making new blood cells. So average joe could have very low ferritin but wouldn't notice if he was not an endurance athlete--his blood cell turnover wouldn't be high enough. Ferritin typically responds SLOWLY to dietary iron, and is not "all over the place."