I just received my labs today from the new nurse practitioner that I went to last week. No wonder I am having such a hard peri/meno. Not only was my thyroid (especially T3) low, but my ferritin level was low as well. The range was 10-291 and mine was 18.... it is still technically "normal", but very low normal.... Have any of you had yours tested? This may be the culprit in me not being able to convert the T4(Synthroid) into the active T3. It is also probably helping to cause my DR/DP, depression, hair loss, and brain fog. Ferritin levels measure the iron storage that we have.

Any idea how to get this up? Any of you have low ferritin levels? I guess I need a good iron supplement since I am not on any right now. My compounding pharmacist told me that a whole food iron supplement is the best. I found one and it's main ingredient is nutritional yeast and now I am afraid to take that because of vaginal yeast infections. I am just not a very big red meat eater either. Any of you had success w/ a particular iron supplement?

If you have any thyroid issues, for sure have your ferritin levels checked.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if I have finally found what was causing this terrible DR/DP???? I hope and pray that this is it and it can be remedied w/ getting my ferritin levels up.

Thanks to all,
mood_swinger

Hi,

I have consistently low ferritin. For years mine has hovered around 10. A few months ago it was rechecked and it was 7. After three months of iron supplementation it went up to 12. However, other iron tests were much better, including percent saturation and total iron binding capacity. Unfortunately, my energy and how I feel in general is not terribly improved.

I have heard it takes a long time to get ferritin levels up. I think I need to never stop taking iron, because my ferritin is so consistently low. I had not heard of the connection with thyroid. My thyroid tests are in the normal range, although T4 tends to be low. I also have a nodule, which apparently is very common.

I can only hope that raising ferritin will help my issues, but I'm not really confident anymore that much of anything will help significantly.

Hope you find some relief -- Missy

Im not sure what the dosage should be but I know that vitamin C and absorbic acid will help you absorb so that may be something you want to look into.
Once you stop having periods ( I dont know if either of you have or not ) it might be easier to have a higher iron level as I know thats how we leach it from our bodies.

At the beginning of my descent into DP/DR/peri/lyme hell, I was found to be extremely anemic. I'm still not sure if it was because of so much menstrual bleeding (the likely cause), a babesia lyme-coinfection, my diet or a combination of everything, but my ferritin levels were MUCH worse than yours, only 5! Even worse than that, my hemoglobin was only 7.6 (should be at least about 13 or 14) and my hematocrit was only about 29 (I think it should be at least 34).

So I was REALLY sick. But the creepy thing is that for me the really weird problems didn't start until after I started taking very high doses of iron at a doctor's recommendation. (She was frantic actually, wanted to hospitalize me). I'm still not sure if it was really the iron causing my problems -- buzzing sensations and other neurological symptoms -- but one of the private doctors I later saw said it was possible that the high levels of iron "fed" the underlying lyme infection I had.

Things got so frightening for me that I stopped taking iron altogether, after trying every imaginable form, tablets, liquids, slow release, ferrous sulfate, gluconate, "food based" iron from a natural food store, etc., etc.. It really seemed like there was a correlation between my symptoms (hich rapidly progressed to DP/DR) and the iron, but I'll never really know for sure, because my hormones were in such flux as well. I went about 6 months bleeding almost constantly, so that even when I did supplement with iron and bring the levels up slightly, they would drop right back down again.

It wasn't until I started seeing the lyme doctor that I even attempted to take iron again. I seriously was scared that I was going to die of anemia (if not lyme or whatever the heck it was causing all my crazy symptoms). Because I was so scared of having a bad reaction -- and he was also starting me on scary medications (prior to all this I rarely even took a tylenol) -- he convinced me to start slowly...using Enfamil baby iron drops!

Well, you know what...it worked! I started off taking only a few drops a day. Then I got myself up to about two droppers full, which I believe is about the equivalent of an adult daily requirement. For almost 4 months my periods stopped and the last time I had my blood tested, my HGB came up to 9.7 and the hematocrit was almost 34, so now I'm considered only mildly anemic. My ferritin level is still low (only about 9 or 10 I think, but my doctor isn't as concerned with that because the HGB and HCT are approaching normal (ferritin indicates how much is stored in your body...which will get low if you're having periods, not necessarily how much your body is using (at least that's how I understand it).

Anyway, do you know what your other bloodwork indicated? If you just had a period, I wouldn't worry much about a ferritin level of 18. If you want to supplement though, try the baby drops. I usually mix them in a little orange juice because this helps with absorption as well as helping to prevent it from staining your teeth. Also, if you do take iron, be sure not to take it in the same meal as dairy since calcium interferes with proper absorption.

And as far as foods go, red meat (beef and lamb) is one of the best sourcesof "heme" iron, which is much better absorbed by your body. Oysters are also a good source of iron, as are a lot of vegetables. Greens are good, but spinach is way overrated. If you do eat spinach, eat it raw, but kale and chard are better sources of iron. Also potatoes have a lot of iron, as does molasses. For a while I was taking spoonfuls of molasses every day and sometimes would even make it into a tea of sorts, just adding a spoonful to a cup of boiling water.

BTW, I've been finding that as my anemia is improving, some of my symptoms are easing. I just got a period the other day and while it made me feel like hell physically, the DP/DR resolved almost completely. I'm also taking a new medication for the babesia that seems to be helping, I'm swimming almost every day and I'm taking magnesium in addition to continuing to take iron. So who knows what's really working, but thank God I'm feeling better and better each day.

Alright my friend, I hope my rambling helps a little that that things keep improving. Please keep us posted.

Cindy

Ferritin levels should be near 100 for optimal health and especially for the thyroid to work properly in converting T4 to T3. I had a ferritin level of 31. I'm always cold, dry scaly skin, nails with redness through then (pale, I guess) and a host of other things. I started bio HRT a year ago hoping to get rid of most of my symptoms, but I found out my T4 was low and so was my T3. Then I found out I had very high Reverse T3 which means the T4 converts the T3 improperly and high Reverse T3 can cause hypo symptoms and meno symptoms as well. I'm on low doses of Cytomel and Armour but I still feel depressed, achy, and host of other lovely things. I do take iron 50mg a day and my ferritin went up 20 points, but in only 6 months. I am now going to take 75mg and then 100mg and test in 6 weeks. Low ferritin levels can cause all types of symptoms.

I take Enzymatic Iron with liver factions which is good because there is more iron in the liver part as well. You also need a lot of Vitamin C at the same time as iron to absorb it into the body. The Ezymatic comes with Vitamin C in it as well.

Ferritin is very important as is Vitamin D. Both of those affect thyroid and other hormones and can cause all types of symptoms when low.

Take supplements and keep checking your levels. Near 100 is optimal for good feelings of health.

I had to have a transfusion two weeks ago as my hemo dropped to 5.2 after a very heavy and long period.I didn't want to do it but honestly felt like I was dying when the doc finally got back to me and said get to the hospital. I have been very anemic throughout all this bleeding stuff so have tried every kind of iron out there. Taking the pharmaceutical strength kind like Repliva made me feel like I had been poisoned. Bad stuff. I second the Enzymatic Iron but I have developed a sort of allergy to the citric acid used in most supplements and can no longer take it. I have found at least for me that when taking iron it is good to take a break from it 1-2 days a week. I also found that it made my bleeding worse if I take during a period. Lastly, I find that my palpitations go away when I don't take iron. I can confirm that my mental function is not good when I get below 7.5 hemo. I will start to get depressed and down on myself but it goes away when my periods are over. Right now I am taking Floradix and New Chapter Women's Iron Formula. Also eating more meat than usual, dried fruit, greens, cooking in cast iron, etc. I think we are all different though so you have to experiment a bit to see what agrees with you and helps too.