Lab gurus, please help me out!

Hi Guys

I hnope one of the lab gurus can help me out. I'm from europe and there is so little emphasis on blood work and vitamins here, it is not funny anymore. so here I have to figure it all out by myself,.

\according to doc, my labs are fine, but I see some red flags. Rightfully so?

-calcium is 2,21 which is well within normal range, it has been the samne since surgery. Mt PTH was 6 in march last year and 5,6 inn nov last year, not measured this m,arch

-Iron it was 17 in march last year, 13 in june, 16 in november and 17,5 a few weeks ago, BUT

-ferretine (isn't there a conjunction?) was 85 macrh last year, 77 in june, and 37 a few weeks ago. What dioes this tanking ferretine tell me??

-B12 was over 1107 in june last year and 479 now (still well within normal according to dioc, but hey it is tanking right? I will start up a b12 a day again if I need to. after having over 1107 doc told me tyo stop taking them)

-floic acid was 44 l;ast june and 19 now, what does this tankint tell me?

-vitamine D was 130 in june and 73 now. (to be fair, before surgery it was 59 so have been worse)

What does this mean? doc says I'm still fine, but wqhat do you think?

my doc (as a lot docs in holland) had me on a 200% rda multi and that's it.

I stubborn as I am, also take calcium citrate in form of 1 calcet creamy bite a day and 1 portion of CalMgD powder every 3 of 4 days (I should do that more often, I know) So daily I get 500 mg and once or twice a week an exctra dosage of 500.

I take a celebrate B12 every week, I did every day but since the doc told me to slow it down I am once a week. Uop those again?

That;'s it really. I hope you can help me adjust. I reckon take the B12 at least veye other day agin, maybe start some iron? (or what does the tanking ferretine mean?) I have celebrate iron chewable over here. Just not taking them as my doc told me iron is fine. And up my calcium?

 

sorry, this must all seem so DENSE to you guys, but it is hard over here having doctors who perform over 1000 surgeries a ye4ar, but who are WAY behing in the whole blood work/vits/deficiancies scheme

I wish I could be some help, but I am still new. Glad to see you are taking your health in your own hands. Doctors don't know everything, they are only "practicing" medicine.

Some of your numbers are way different than the ranges typically used in the US, so I'm thinking they may use different tests or different ways to measure some things in your country.  Still, you're noticing what things are dropping, and that's what's important.

Ferritin is related to iron, yeah.  It's like your iron storage.  Your iron level is like the money in your pocket and your ferritin is like the money you have in the bank.  So if your ferritin is dropping a lot, I would increase your iron.

473 is too low for B12.  Below 550, people tend to get tired and depressed.  Below 400, you can get nerve damage in your hands and feet.  So I would up the B12.  The ASMBS recommends 350-500 mcg B12 sublingual daily, but some people seem to need a lot more.

Folate is one of the B vitamins, B9.  How are your other B vitamins?  B1 (thiamine), B6?  If those are all good, I would just start taking some folate, otherwise I'd take a B complex.

Vitamin D needs to be at least 80 so I'd up your D3 a little bit.

And for calcium, the ASMBS says you need 1500-2000 mg calcium citrate a day.  The calcium level in your blood doesn't really tell you much about your calcium intake, you need a bone density scan to see how your bones are doing, but you don't wanna wait until you find out you've had bone loss to start taking enough calcium.

And this doesn't seem dense at all, docs in the US are not very up to date with vitamins, either, at least not most of them.

Hi folks/Kelly,.
 The values look so different because many of the tests use different units than we do here in the US. (For example, mmol/L vs mg/dL). They therefore require conversion in order to use with our normal ranges her in the US.  I won't expand on anything else you stated as I think you did a better job than I could summing everything up. 

  In the future, it might help if you were able to obtain and post the normal ranges your doctor uses so that we can determine how high/Low your results are relative to normal. 

Mike

Thanks kelly!

by the way I do have the normal ranges listed next to it, but as I have learned from you guys, those normnal ranges do not always make sense, right? normal range for B12 says it should be over 300, and as Kelly mentioned, by that time you are WAY to low!

Right.  It's actually better not to think of those ranges as "normal" ranges, like "the range needed for good health."  It's better to think of it as the "typical range" and people are typically low in some nutrients.  I think the word "normal" there is kind of deceptive because we think it means "healthy" but it does not always mean that.

I thought as much yeah, thanks Kelly for clarifying

well, I'll start today with my new regime

200% rda multi

upping my calcium (CalMgD powder, so that's upping my D at the same time)

taking 1 iron every other day

taking 1 b12 every other day