- Joined
- Mar 16, 2007
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- 25,912
I think I will have to forever as well, and just stay on ferrous sulfate so my ferritin doesn't tank. Do you just accept a really low ferritin level or do you take ferrous sulfate as well? I have to think all the donations you do lower quite a bit.
I honestly don't know what my iron level is, but he checks it 2x a year. So far in the past 11 years I haven't had it get to a level that he feels is unhealthy for me. I haven't had any symptoms either. So no problems for me. I remember talking with him and he said initially that we needed to get my iron levels down some before my hematocrit would stay down. In the first two years I had to get a phlebotomy once a month! Like clock work, every 4 weeks otherwise my hematocrit would get up around 58 or so. Eventually over the course of those initial 4 years it got down low enough so that now I only go once every 2 or 3 months. So I was glad once mine got down some. My doctor hematologist/oncologist actually did a bone marrow biopsy on me to make sure I didn't have cancer or some other disorder in my bones. Test came back normal. I think that was probably mostly to look for primary polycythemia.
So for me I have had no problems with iron, no supplements to take. In fact, I even stopped taking a regular multivitamin because those have iron in them. I take the multi for seniors because it has no iron. Once I did that my hematocrit level stayed down a lot better.