Low Iron......help needed

Thanks! I will try to find a sitter for my daughter so I can come. I will ask you for the address if I can find a sitter. Mary

You can get the Tender Iron at vitalady.com  It's carbonyl iron. I know many hematologists and surgeons say we can not absorb iron any longer after surgery.  I suppose this could be true for some folks.  It could also be true that maybe they just don't absorb certain types of iron as well as other types and/or they need to take a lot more of certain types of iron to make a difference in the labs and keep them where they need to be.   For me personally, i would rather find a form of iron in a pill that I can take at home, in the amounts that will keep my labs up to an optimum level to keep me healthy, without me needing infusions.  That's my ideal.  If I can do that - that's what I'm going to do.  So I'm doing the Tender Iron and see how it goes.  If my labs won't get up and stay up where they need to - then I'll do infusions.  At least I have that choice.

Hi Michelle: I've heard rave reviews of your knowledge and your website, and this posting caught my eye.  I am a DS'er and have been taking Repliva for two months.   My iron is at 100 (up from 49 two months ago), but my Ferritin is still at 9.   My hemoglobin is 10.6, which just dropped from 11.6.   I think my heavy periods are causing that one-week drop.   I'm doing well from a digestive standpoint with the Repliva, but it obviously isn't doing much for my ferritin.   Why is this so?   Would switching to the Tender Iron help my Ferrtin, and do you know why?  My surgeon's office is still not really behind the eight-ball here on nutritional deficiencies.  My Vitamin D has dropped from 28 to 18 and they prescribed a once-a-week dose of 50,000 IU of Vitamin D, packed in oil!   I've heard you sell Dry D in 50,000 IU, so I'm going to have to order some of that.  Thanks! Julie

Well, thank you very much. I ony know what I know and not anything outside my sphere of well, what I know. My little bubble of info. LOL

And I can't type worth a darn, either.

Like, um, why do you think I have ppl email me privately? I can't always figure out how to get things from there (in my email) to here! LOL

I've watched Repliva work for ppl and while neither of those types of iron have impressed me alone, apparently the combo in one pill is doing a good job, but it bothers some ppl's tummies. Our docs rx it off label. The original wants iron for 21 days, placebo for 7. But our docs rx it at 3 per day, every day. That's a whopping lotta iron!

The Tender Iron. OK, never ask me why cuz then I have to tell you. LOL Back in the olden days, we started on Vitron C., too. Hurt my tummy, and even at 65x4 per day, we fell deeper and deeper into anemia. They tried us on Trinsicon (rx) and Chromagen Forte (rx) and combo of both.

We found just fe fumarate OTC in 65mg pills, huge jug of 1000 pills for ultra cheap. And it went off the market. Then we found very cheap predecessor to Tender Iron in 65mg. Did I mention cheap? BUT THEN, in 1997, the iron rules changed.

No more 65mg per pill in a bottle. Nope, now it would be 29mg or less elemental iron if it was in a bottle OR it had to be blister packed. POOF. Everything vanished.

The Tender Iron predecessor came back after a few years, but in a bottle, so only 25mg. Thank goodness, we'd socked away enough of the original to get us over the hump. We were taking 4 x 65, so 265mg, basically. Then we got our first ferritin tests ever. Mine was 766, Don's was 636. (range is roughly 20-200) WHOA! Where did this come from and how did we go from being anemic to being OK for awhile to being like THIS? No doc could answer. 3 surgeons, 3 other types of docs, no answers.

We stopped taking any iron (against my better judgment) and gradually spent down our ferritin ( keeping iron at around 80-90****il it hit 300. In the meantime, the various types of this iron had come and gone off the market. The mfr was bought and sold 7 times. I finally lost track of who owns them this week! So, I commanded the Tender Irons to be made for us.

And they got here about the time we needed to start taking them again. Half a brain woulda told me that if 265 was what got us up there in the 90's, then we'd have to go to about there to retain good levels, but we dinked around with 100, 150, 200, 250mg and so it took 2 yrs (labs every 6 months) to stop the ferritin dropping, Mine reached 106, Don's 65. We finally reversed the trend last spring and now are back to approaching 200 in ferritin again, still holding iron at appx 90.

OK, so now we're ok, and the Tender Iron is doing the job for us. Don needed a bit more nudge so he also takes the polysaccharride with it. And I went thru all this to tell you that I think probably a combo or ****tail is what might work for you.

As for why the Tender Iron builds ferritin, I asked a biochemist and he said, " because the !@#$%^& and then @#$%^&*( combine to make the )*&^ more #@$%^&*( and so it makes perfect sense!" So, there you have it! It has to do with molecules or sizes getting into cells.

OK, now here is another freaky thing. There are a few other carbonyl irons on the market. Butt hey don't work the same way. And THAT makes no sense at all to me.

But then, the AAC + FF iron types in the Repliva don't work very well alone and yet they seem to work well together.

So, in this very long answer on the history of iron (LOL), I'd say continue the Repliva and try the Tender for your ferritin. I know some ppl say to just skip it and go directly to infusions, I don't believe our insurance would pay for them for us, and many ppl have bad reactions to them, not to mention the cost! So, if one can keep their levels steady for $10/month or whatever, then why not do it that way?

Iron is always taken with vit C, alone together for at least one hour (2 for normies). Never with caffeine, dairy, eggs or whole grains, any other vites, minerals or meds.

Michelle is the tender iron a pill to swallow or chew? I have a hard time chewing anything (pill wise) withougt gaging lol!

TY for all the help!!!!!!!

You can chew or swallow the Tender Iron.  I chew mine with a chewable Vitamin C; but you can swallow them.  

With low Iron and Low ferritin you have to be very careful of your heart. Mine is very low so my surgeon sent me to a blood doctor. He told me he sees lots of gastic bypass patients and the only way we can up our iron is by infusions.  He said we will never absorb iron by pills. So once a week I am going for iron infusions until I get my levels up. Tell your doctor you need a referral to the hemotoligest. (sp) Good luck. Koukla

I second or third or fouth the opinion to go see a hematologist.  My ferritin is 6 and iron is 20.  My internist kept putting me off and just had me increasing the iron I was taking.  Obviously after 4 months it wasn't going anywhere.  I fired her and saw a hematologist.  She immediately started me on infusions.  Had the first one last week and go for another this week.  Then wait 2 weeks, have labs and see where I'm at.   Most docs don't do shots anymore.  You need to see a specialist.  What does your WLS doc say?  Mine is the one *****ferred me to the hematologist.  GO!!!  Get a referral!

BOY ..... I HAVE A FERRITAN LEVEL OF 5 GUESS THATS NOT GOOD??? I SEE MY SURGEON NEXT WEEK  I GOT TO GO TO A HEMO I JUST WANT ENERGY  BACK I HAVE NONE!

how muchof what have you been taking for iron?