Patch MD - 3 months post OP tests

This is interesting. I checked my pre-op ferritin levels and it was 41! next blood test in 2 weeks. will be interested to see where I am. vitamin D was pretty bad at 42 and it was summer...I'm sure i'll be higher now on D. Curious to see where i am with iron.

Thank you for this important reminder. I'm going to be getting my labs done at a place that allows me to have online access. The same lab did my pre-op tests as well. I will definitely be reviewing for trends and I'm very grateful that you shared your experience.

So my primary doctor and endocrinologist share the same online portal where I can see my results. When my surgeon orders labs (he doesn't have a portal), I just tell the lab check-in person to copy my primary and endo on the results and then I get to see them online. Plus it never hurts for everyone to be informed and to have a larger chunk of my records in one place!

I've made no such assumption. I'm just saying that you've given others zero quantitative data to go on.

In that case thank you for your opinion

I went into RNY with ferritin of over 100. 1.5 years later it was 11... And since the range was 10-250..They told me " it was good

While I felt horrible. to my really really great docs, my numbers were "normal".

But i felt horrible. Tired...Out of breath when walking a flight of stairs. Once I asked for the results and a vet from here looked at them - she pointed out that my ferritin was dangerously low and that I need hematologist.

2 months later I had a first series of iron infusions. A month after infusions, I was hiking in Colorado, above 10,000 feet without much of an effort. My low iron before infusions made it hard for me to walk one flight of stairs? before that.

Most of my other numbers were "normal" - but most of them were borderline normal.

It is like having just barely enough money to survive, but not a penny more to have fun doing that.

Nice analogy. I'm going to steal it.

So, the thing is that we store several months of vitamins in our bodies. Fat stores huge amounts of D vitamins, for instance, and our bones also store reserves of vital minerals. It's not until these are depleted for several months that we see deficiencies. Iron is notoriously tricky, as often, especially if there's malabsorption, numbers are high initially and then people wind up severely deficient and in trouble. Typically we also don't get our ferritin or PTH tested, which are better indicators of iron and calcium, respectively.

People aren't being negative for the sake of being negative. It is always good to be cautious and dubious. I don't even trust regular vitamins actually, heh.

I am glad your numbers are great so far! I wish you continued success over the next few months :)

I did bring this up with the nurse when she called me, about how it was probably too soon to be low in anything and she assured me the contrary. She mentioned she has seen many patients become low on some of their vitamins in the first 3 months and if that was not the case they would not bother testing so soon. This is what I was told.

A couple of things, like D3 and B12, go up or down pretty quickly. They are easy to tweak for most people. Most other things -- most importantly ferritin -- take a long time. A long time to fall, and a really, really long time to get back up.