Patch MD - 3 months post OP tests

We can love our doctors and health team. But at the end of the day it is a job to them. They may love it and have a passion.

We have to be our own advocate. We are in charge of our bodies.

^^^This exactly.

I appreciate everyone's comments and opinions. However, the purpose of this post was to share my experience with the patches so far. I remember being pre-op and trying to decide if I should get them or not and because they are so new there wasn't much out there.

Unfortunately, generic results ("your labs look great," rather than detailed level counts) after only three months' use for a new patient do NOT provide sufficient information for someone to make an informed decision about the patches' merits.

If you don't mind me asking, whay are you so convinced that my health practitioner didn't actually go through my labs in detaile and compare it to previous results prior to calling me and telling me that my results were great?

I can give you my own experiences. My iron/ferritin levels were "normal" when I went in for surgery. I had my revision at Mayo Clinic in Rochester (prestigious....no?) I had my labs done at 3 months. My surgeon's office called me and said they were "great" everything was with in normal range. Same thing a 6 months, but I was starting to feel tired. at 9 months I requested copies of all my labs and started my own spread sheet. I had my 1 year labs drawn and the team called and said they were "normal", but I noticed that my ferritin had dropped a little. I said nothing because I was still within "range". This went on for another two years. I started complaining about some symptoms like fatigue, restless leg, heart palpitations, etc. When I finally brought my spread sheet in to lay out on the table on front of my surgeon, he flat out told me that he did not have time to notice trends. If my numbers fell within normal range, that was good enough for him.

Well, that was not good enough for me. I went to my PCP and had a long talk with her. She referred me to a hematologist when my ferritin hit 13 (I started with a ferritin over 100) The hematologist had me in for three infusions ASAP. He told me that we should never let our ferritin drop below 50. At 50 we become symptomatic. I now have infusions when my numbers go below 50.

Your health is your responsibility. You have the time to keep track because you only have to keep a spreadsheet on you. I can guarantee that your surgeon is not taking the time to track your trends. They have hundreds of patients. They look at the number in front of them and move on to the next patient. Surgeon's are great at surgery...not so great at supplementation and nutrition.

Please take this advice seriously. Extreme vitamin deficiencies are VERY difficult to recover from.

Thanks for sharing your story. In my 10 years here on OH I have heard way too many stories like yours. I hope the OP will listen. If not, I do know others will.

Do you have the Mayo Clinic app on your phone? It tracks and graphs all of your lab results. My surgery was done through another clinic, but I insist that all of my labs be done through Mayo so I can see the trends quickly and easily.

In the future, a lot of the work will be done for us on apps and web portals. But for now, it's a crapshoot.

I have doctors use three different portals. One doctor used one portal for several years, then switched to another. None of them have the ability to enter information into another, or even look at another.

Some day electronic medical information will be standardized. But for now, things change too much. People move, switch insurance, switch doctors, etc etc. For the time being, the only way to be sure about information long term is to do it ourselves.

I no longer have labs done at Mayo due to a change in insurance.