I’d personally be a little more aggressive than @bbxtreme and go with 100-150mg EOD of the iron bisglycinate so that you fix the problem faster since it’s no fun to deal with those symptoms. Then you can stop sooner too.
Thanks for the advice and I was considering something similar after doing more research today. I'm going to order some bisglycinate and do either 75mg or 100mg every other day and get bloods done again. How long do you think I should wait to retest? Maybe a month? Maybe longer?
The cheap form, ferrous sulfate, comes in 75mg tabs already so if you’re deep in a deficiency, I’d try to match that dosage at minimum with the superior bisglycinate form. I’d do 100mg EOD for a month and then retest (take 2-3 days off the iron supplement before testing). Consume high iron foods with vitamin c for better absorption in addition.
I looked back at some of my doctors notes from a few years ago when I was in the same situation (although I don't remember the lab test numbers off the top of my head). They had me taking 325mg of ferrous sulfate twice a day (65mg iron twice a day). So now I'm thinking I should just go to 150mg EOD as your suggested high end dose with the iron bisglycinate. Any reason to take 3 days off before testing? I was just going to get the test done on the second day right before my next dose (since I will be following the EOD dosing schedule).
Keep in mind that besides the biovailability, ferrous sulfate is generally not overly gentle on your stomach.
Taking Fe (iron containing supplements) too close to your labs can give you a false impression of your Fe status. That's why it's suggested to stop Fe supplementation a few days prior.
This is why I don’t have people rush into high amounts of iron fast. There’s so many other factors at play and markers that should be checked.
Yes you could do 150mg EOD. I’ve done it before with no issues besides darker stools. If you get side effects (not as common with bisglycinate), simply reduce the dose. Ferritin takes time to increase so going too low with the dose could lead to frustration of not resolving symptoms quickly enough since it takes time to increase ferritin.
I followed nothuman’s protocol and it raised my ferritin from 7 (anemic) to
Yeah I've read a lot of people get upset stomachs from it but I've used it in the past and I don't think it ever bothered me to much. I'll be using iron bisglycinate now though however anyways.
Were you doing once a day or EOD for the iron?
Once a day.
That’s a really low dose. I know if I’m iron deficient, I want my symptoms to go away ASAP so I’m going to use the highest effective dose in order to feel normal again.
Without a doubt. It's worth mentioning that iron deficiency is also associated with decreased monoamine oxidase activity in humans, which promotes a disruption of the metabolism of monoamines, including Dopamine and Serotonin.
And what is that?
You can take up to 150mg of iron bisglycinate, which is 6 pills at a time (EOD)
