Iron deficiency and severe hair loss

I doubled and then tripled my oral iron and my blood counts kept going lower. My body was out of iron stores and I wasn't absorbing the oral iron - so now I'm on iron infusions.

It happens and not uncommon. Just another reason RNY post ops need to keep seeing their bariatric physicians and get complete panel of labs (including vitamins and minerals) checked.

Best wishes,

Penny

Hi Penny,

I have be diligent about having my panel done by my surgeon's office; he has now moved to NJ and is practicing there, but his practice at Yale is still there and there several other surgeons who are there as well as an APRN. My iron has never been an issue until this year.

I dislike saying this, but your vitamin regimen is really crappy. Flintstones are missing a LOT of things we need. Things you haven't been getting AT ALL. please start complete, ADULT vitamins.

All of the commonly available calcium chews are calcium carbonate or tricalcium phosphate. If that's what you've been taking, you haven't absorbed much of it, at all. And even if those calcium chews were calcium citrate, you should be getting three or more doses a day, not 2.

Almost everyone needs a bunch more B12 and D3 as well, more than you've been getting.

Please, please, get COMPLETE labs run as soon as possible. A complete set of vitamins and minerals is going to be about 15 vials of blood. Yes, 15. If they take less, they aren't checking a lot of things, like vitamin K, copper, selenium, etc. Don't take no for an answer. And don't take their word for it that your levels are ok. Get the printout. You will need it in the future.

You also need a bone density scan. The calcium result in your labwork tells you absolutely nothing about your bone health. Only a very quick and simple bone density, or DEXA scan can do that.

Please follow up on all this. At 11 years out, you can have serious, serious deficiencies, some of which can cause permanent health issues.

There is a good list of labs you can print and give your doc on the following link. Scoll down and look for the posts by Andrea and Vitalady.

http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/rny/4152810/Pam-T-or-Vital adyLa/

Thanks Grim; I have the complete panel done every year before my visit to my surgeon's office. The Fintstones and calcium chews are what they recommend. I will make an appt with a hematologist for sure.

Make an appointment with a hemotologist. Bring your most recent blood work. Get new labs if they are a few months old. Ask him about iron infusions but specifically http://www.injectafer.com/ newer delivery system... much better and it should have your levels back up in a couple of visits (2-30 minutes, 1 week apart)

Thank you!