big cognitive/energy improvement dealing with anemia

[progranulindefect]

i'm not apoe 4, but have had cognitive decline. as an example, i found someone's keys in my pocket and did not know how they got there. i knew i could have completely forgotten an incident, so i kept that possibility in mind. but i was also paranoid that someone was playing a trick on me. anyway, 2 weeks after i turned them in to our school office, my student asked me for his keys. i asked why he had waited so long to ask me for them. i think he said he forgot about it because he had a spare set. anyway, he had given me the keys to hold, and i still have absolutely zero memory of that.

anyway, in april i had blood work done and was back to being anemic with a hemoglobin of 10 and a ferritin level of 9 (due to heavy periods since 38). note to self- if you think you are anemic, don't have your other blood work done at the same time. they took so much blood out of me, that my symptoms took a severe turn for the worse, and i had lots of phlegm in my lungs and very low energy for about 2 weeks.

so i have been on supplements and just not being out of breath from a little running to the train is amazing. i also handle stress better and i don't get angry as easily. so now i know that i am going to have to monitor my iron all year and will probably need to take an iron supplement pretty regularly until menopause anyway, since i don't want to do any of the procedures to reduce heavy menstrual flow, which is the cause of my anemia.

so just a little tale of cognitive improvement for those women like me who get anemia but don't take it seriously enough.

[Stavia]

Glad you're feeling better. Low iron makes people feel awful.

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[slacker]

Glad you're feeling better. Low iron makes people feel awful.

Hey Stavia - at what level of low ferritin do you begin to be concerned? In my case (post menopausal), normal hemoglobin(12.9 g/dL) and iron (97 ug/dL), barely normal ferritin (17 ng/mL). Functional medicine MD wanted me to take iron supplements for thyroid optimization given her optimal ferritin of at least 50; I declined for now given no anemia or low iron...my energy does kind of suck and my cognition is not razor sharp, but there are probably other things going on to drive these. Maybe I should just take iron for a month to see what happens?

Thanks in advance for free consult

[progranulindefect]

Stavia, what level of ferritin is a danger sign. my sister in law was just diagnosed with stage 4 small cell lung cancer. it seemed to come out of nowhere. but her blood work from a month before showed a ferritin level of 300. i have since read that high levels can be a maker of cancer. i was thinking that paying attention to ferritin as a warning system for cancers like lung cancer might save lives.

[Stavia]

Evidence shows people start feeling tired at below 20. But some women need it to be up to 40.

Pro: the ferritin is likely to be a marker of her cancer rather than a cause. 300 is not extraordinarily high. More than 1000 is extraordinarily high.
Ps. The commonest cause of raised ferritin in my experience is fatty liver

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[progranulindefect]

Stavia, i didn't think it was a cause- but a marker of dna damage. my brother can't stop smoking. he also works around chemicals. i was thinking of advising him to get a ferritin test when he gets his annual physical. i saw a table published somewhere on elevated ferritin levels that need to be investigated further. i think 300 may have been the starting point.

[Stavia]

Agreed with this Pro, absolutely correct. I start looking closely at 300ish for possible causes. Most of them end up being alcohol abuse or fatty liver. Occasionally a haemochromatosis and more occasionally something very serious.


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[circular]

Stavia, would '20-40 ng/mL' for ferritin be suitable in your column on the biomarker spreadsheet? Or is that too general, not taking enough account of male/female and age. Let me know what wording will work when you get a change. TIA

[Stavia]

Circ its too narrow a range. That would be the bottom. I wouldn't want to committ to a top reading, there is a lot of bro-science on the blogosphere trying to pin all disease to high or higher iron. I would at this stage just say that I prefer ferritin to be in range.

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[circular]

Thanks Stavia, fixed