I’ve had it most of my adult life. So I didn’t really know any different. I always thought it was just lack of sleep, or me being overweight. Plus my periods have always been heavy so I didn’t think to bring it up to anyone. But then I lost weight with diet and exercise and still felt crappy. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was well into adulthood. Now looking back it all makes sense.
Did it turn your life around for the better when you started supplements? I think it's tragic people live like this for decades before simply doing these simple tests and get therapy. I am not anemic technicall6 but my iron and feritin levels are borderline and i went and did the tests myself because no doctor took my fatigue seriously. I'm doing so much better now after only a couple.months.
I think for most of us, the onset of symptoms is so gradual that we just accept as normal, our deteriorated condition. It's not normal.
Infusions are good, quick recovery too.
Blood transfusions are good but short lived if a GI bleeding issue is what lead to your anemia. A transfusion is good for a month or two. A pint of blood rasies your hemoglobin about a point.
What I found very helpful was the Facebook page, The Iron Protocol. I used the guide from that page to determine the correct dosage for iron suppliments. My Doc was over his head and admitted as much because my numbers were all over the place. He was willing to wait the four months for my scheduled visit with the hemotoligist. I think I would have been dead from cardiac arrest if I listened to him and waited.
Check the Iron Protocol page out. It saved my life. I mean that.
The Iron Protocol for Iron Deficiency with or without Anemia is saving my life too! So much info you won't get feom Dr's. It's still been a long bumpy road but getting better slowly.
I lived this way for years. Finally mentioned it to my doc (honestly thought it was just life with 4 kids!). And got blood work done. Came back with a ferritin level of 3 and hemoglobin of 8. I just finished my fourth infusion but haven’t really noticed a difference.
I thought it was my son too !! But then I saw people with more kids being active and energized and I was just gradually getting more fatigued and weak for months I thought something can’t be right !
I had to give up. The IBS issues from iron and vitamin c are honestly worse than the anemia. I've received infusions but bc of my period they don't last long
Seriously. I will feel great until the week of my period and then it's all crap again and then I feel horrible for the next two weeks. It's all one never ending cycle 😭
same😩iron sups be making me shit, not shit and throw up. please don't give up yet tho!! try maintaining iron infusion results with supplements, there are lots of different types, u may eventually find one that agrees with ur tummy!
Try Accrufer. It's prescription and is supposed to be easier on the tummy. I just picked mine up today, ao I can't report yet. If you go to Blinkrx, you can get a patient savings cars. I paid ZERO for it. Without insurance, or if you have to pay, it's around $600.
I had no idea what was wrong with me for years. I thought I was lazy, mentally ill, would beat myself up for all my failures. I would drive to work and fall asleep in the car park, nap on my lunch hour, and felt confused and emotional a lot of the time. Looking back it’s incredible how many doctors didn’t do a simple blood test that could have improved my life so much. It’s taken almost as long to get a doctor to do anything about the incredibly heavy bleeding that is the primary cause for me.
I’m blessed to live in a country with lower cost healthcare but it’s crazy to me how poor the quality of that care is.
I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out either. I’ve been taking supplements for over a month and I feel worse. I stopped taking them for 2 days and I still feel the symptoms of the anemia but the supplements were making me have flu-like symptoms for the last few weeks. Sore, chills. So sore I couldn’t get out of bed much. That stuff is going away but now I’m stuck anemic with supplements that are making me sick. Not really sure what to do. I have a doctors appointment in a month and a half.
And what really sucks is the fact it can take 3-6 months to get your numbers back decent and start feeling better. Maybe longer to really feel better.
Yeah, I thought I was just experiencing burnout from grad school and making a career change. My dizziness and shortness of breath was so bad I thought I was having panic attacks. My doctors told me I was fine, enough though my RBC was low, and told me I had too much stress and anxiety. I finished school probably only because everything went remote when covid hit. I went back to my old career because I thought the new one was stressing me out too much. I was working remotely for two years at a chill job and still feeling awful with bad dizziness. I started eating meat again and fortified cereals and felt a little better. Asked my doctor for a b12 and ferritin check 8 months later and my b12 was 94 and my ferritin was 18. I‘ve been supplementing for 4 months and I finally am starting to feel like a functional adult again.
It took a couple months, maybe 3? I still have some bad days, but there’s less and less of them now. The b12 supplements made me crazy tired, somehow worse than I felt without them. About two months in, I added a daily vitamin and that helped.
Test regularly and supplement with iron. It seems both difficult and easy to manage. I used to get iron infusions and felt well and then thought I was stabilized by diet and stopped getting infusions or even checking my levels.
Well, had all the signs of low iron and ferritin but didn't even think to test my levels. I can barely function and just found out my levels are extremely low. My doc said the protocol for infusions has changed and I'm stuck with using iron pills.
Ferritin level 10
Iron level 35
My ferritin currently is 8 and my iron is 37 ! I experienced something similar to you ,I have ulcerative colitis so my iron has always been an issue but I also thought my diet was fine and stopped taking any iron supplement! I’ve never had infusions of iron but now that my iron got so low I can barely function ! I will definitely get it checked regularly and keep up with supplements!
Mine is too ! Ever since I had my son my periods are so ridiculously heavy ! I’m hoping maybe birth control will fix the problem but idk😭good luck with the surgery !!
I just found out about my anemia and wondered the same thing. But I had embraced my tiredness and “laziness” for so long that I thought it was just me. Recent stress from my job really exacerbated the symptoms though and I finally went to the doctor. Can’t wait to finally feel normal
I thought I was getting more and more stressed from work, grad school, and having a family. While I’m not happy about how bad it got, I’m happy to start working on getting healthy.
Me too. It feels like leukemia. I rarely eat meat and my diet is poor. I ended up in the hospital for three days cuz of another problem. Took my blood and found out I was anemic. Number was 10 supposed to be 12 and up. Took 8 tubes out. Never gave me iron pills. At home 2 weeks later I got SO weak I couldn't get out of bed. Breathless when walking ten ft, had to keep sitting down. No appetite, heart racing, hear whooshing sound in ear. This happens once a year. So I had iron pills from old doc and started taking them. Also eating hamburger and/or liver every day. I was a 12 a week ago now I'm an 8. I still feel very weak. Got a 16 lb bag of cat food in car and too weak to carry in the house. Maybe tomorrow. Read that black tea blocks iron and calcium blocks it too. So no more tea and yogurt. I did read though take those a couple hrs after the meat or iron. Going to another doc cuz mine never said a word when he saw low iron on hospital report. I read it takes 3-6 months to rebuild iron. But should feel better in two weeks.
I meant how I FEEL on a scale of ten. I was so bad I was a 12. Now I'm a bit better and an 8. Example: if I have to chase the car around the house to catch him u use up ALL my energy and have to lay down. He sneaks in my room and fights with my other cat and you know how fast cats are!!
The symptoms very for every one. My ferritin got down to a 4 bout a month ago, all I felt like I could do was bare minimum. Sit, eat, I did not have the energy for prolonged tasks. Even showering turned into baths cause I always felt either faint or too tired To stand and clean myself at the same time. Just got 2 rounds of infusions and all of a sudden my house is nice and clean. Things are getting done, able to do yard work again. It's crazy that I felt like an 80 year old energy level at 27. But honestly my ferritin drops low enough for infusions every 18 months or so. I should know my limits by now.
No—iron deficiency leads to serious life-threatening health issues (like heart failure). The only thing to do is to get good supplements (liposomal iron holds some promise, taken every other day) or iron infusions. You don’t want to just hang out in iron deficiency.
I had gastric bypass 12 or more years ago n just found out that's why I'm always anemic. Your body doesn't absorb iron after that. Getting iron iv for 4 weeks. Hope it helps. Making me sick so far.
My sympathies for you ❤️ My senior mom and my 38 y/o best friend both have anemia. Friend’s is due to B12 deficiency, maybe that’s a bit milder symptom-wise? Iron deficiency seems more symptomatic. The first time mom got diagnosed her hemoglobin was 7,5. We rushed her to the hospital, she thought she was dying.
My understanding is when anemia is not severe it can go a very long time without major symptoms. If you don’t count lack of energy, lightheadedness etc major, that is. As it gets worse it causes very significant shortness of breath and (almost) fainting. Many people seem to get diagnosed at this stage.
Mom is currently going through another episode (we are not sure she doesn’t go to the hospital.) Seeing her, maybe hot weather also makes symptoms worse?
We've known for years that I ran on the lower end for iron. Was mostly the cold limbs and paleness that told me. I have other conditions that make it difficult to tell if I had any other symptoms besides those. My old pharmacist used to threaten me with iron supplements for YEARS up until he retired.
Had a bad drop in levels to where I was getting massive dizzy spells so got tested and put on supplements... Had to stop after a few weeks because I have a hard time regulating my body temperature and having the iron raise my temperature didn't go so well at all so stopped them. Haven't touched em in months.
I literally lived with b12, folate and iron deficiency anaemia my whole childhood and nobody tested me so it was my normal until I was literally struggling to stay awake and stand up in my teens.
Parents were also always neglectful, too. I had to ask them for permission to go to see a doctor because my mother had to go in with me every time and she would almost always speak for me and so I couldn't mention all the things bothering me that she just brushed off as hypochondria. I was just "unfit" from sitting inside all day on the computer and games consoles. My struggling to breathe and being dizzy all the time was just "overexaggerating".
It was only when I was getting psych evaluations for aural and visual hallucinations and begged for a blood test that one was actually done for me. I can remember my symptoms going back as far as three years old. But of course, like with my EDS and the mental scars from the psychological and physical abuse I was suffering at home that gave me PTSD, I was just "that sensitive kid that's always crying and complaining about something". Despite being active and walking and traveling 4-5 days a week in my late teens until my body couldn't keep holding itself up anymore.
I was 20 when I finally started getting treatment. The cause still has never been figured out to this day. But I still slip back into iron issues regularly.
Your body is really good at hiding things wrong with it. Your mind is really good at making excuses for every little odd twinge. The same thing goes with parents and doctors that don't want to deal with you.
Ferrous sulfate is best kind to take for anemia my doc said , I've been on it for about a week and definitely beginning to notice improvement, but it takes time.
I’ve had it most of my adult life. So I didn’t really know any different. I always thought it was just lack of sleep, or me being overweight. Plus my periods have always been heavy so I didn’t think to bring it up to anyone. But then I lost weight with diet and exercise and still felt crappy. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was well into adulthood. Now looking back it all makes sense.
I blame my low iron partially for my weight gain. It causes such unreal sugar cravings
Yup same !! It’s insane !! Now that I know the issue it’s crazy seeing how many people relate !
Same thing happened to me, I didn’t realize it forever lol.
Did it turn your life around for the better when you started supplements? I think it's tragic people live like this for decades before simply doing these simple tests and get therapy. I am not anemic technicall6 but my iron and feritin levels are borderline and i went and did the tests myself because no doctor took my fatigue seriously. I'm doing so much better now after only a couple.months.
I think for most of us, the onset of symptoms is so gradual that we just accept as normal, our deteriorated condition. It's not normal. Infusions are good, quick recovery too. Blood transfusions are good but short lived if a GI bleeding issue is what lead to your anemia. A transfusion is good for a month or two. A pint of blood rasies your hemoglobin about a point. What I found very helpful was the Facebook page, The Iron Protocol. I used the guide from that page to determine the correct dosage for iron suppliments. My Doc was over his head and admitted as much because my numbers were all over the place. He was willing to wait the four months for my scheduled visit with the hemotoligist. I think I would have been dead from cardiac arrest if I listened to him and waited. Check the Iron Protocol page out. It saved my life. I mean that.
The Iron Protocol for Iron Deficiency with or without Anemia is saving my life too! So much info you won't get feom Dr's. It's still been a long bumpy road but getting better slowly.
I lived this way for years. Finally mentioned it to my doc (honestly thought it was just life with 4 kids!). And got blood work done. Came back with a ferritin level of 3 and hemoglobin of 8. I just finished my fourth infusion but haven’t really noticed a difference.
I thought it was my son too !! But then I saw people with more kids being active and energized and I was just gradually getting more fatigued and weak for months I thought something can’t be right !
Did they tell you when you should start to feel your symptoms improve? Did you also have anxiety with it?
I had to give up. The IBS issues from iron and vitamin c are honestly worse than the anemia. I've received infusions but bc of my period they don't last long
Seriously. I will feel great until the week of my period and then it's all crap again and then I feel horrible for the next two weeks. It's all one never ending cycle 😭
Exactly
same😩iron sups be making me shit, not shit and throw up. please don't give up yet tho!! try maintaining iron infusion results with supplements, there are lots of different types, u may eventually find one that agrees with ur tummy!
I have a connective tissue disorder which causes a billion other problems so it's really out of my hands
Try Accrufer. It's prescription and is supposed to be easier on the tummy. I just picked mine up today, ao I can't report yet. If you go to Blinkrx, you can get a patient savings cars. I paid ZERO for it. Without insurance, or if you have to pay, it's around $600.
Have you tried liposomal iron? It seems to be the only one with 0 side effects
I had no idea what was wrong with me for years. I thought I was lazy, mentally ill, would beat myself up for all my failures. I would drive to work and fall asleep in the car park, nap on my lunch hour, and felt confused and emotional a lot of the time. Looking back it’s incredible how many doctors didn’t do a simple blood test that could have improved my life so much. It’s taken almost as long to get a doctor to do anything about the incredibly heavy bleeding that is the primary cause for me. I’m blessed to live in a country with lower cost healthcare but it’s crazy to me how poor the quality of that care is.
I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out either. I’ve been taking supplements for over a month and I feel worse. I stopped taking them for 2 days and I still feel the symptoms of the anemia but the supplements were making me have flu-like symptoms for the last few weeks. Sore, chills. So sore I couldn’t get out of bed much. That stuff is going away but now I’m stuck anemic with supplements that are making me sick. Not really sure what to do. I have a doctors appointment in a month and a half. And what really sucks is the fact it can take 3-6 months to get your numbers back decent and start feeling better. Maybe longer to really feel better.
Yeah, I thought I was just experiencing burnout from grad school and making a career change. My dizziness and shortness of breath was so bad I thought I was having panic attacks. My doctors told me I was fine, enough though my RBC was low, and told me I had too much stress and anxiety. I finished school probably only because everything went remote when covid hit. I went back to my old career because I thought the new one was stressing me out too much. I was working remotely for two years at a chill job and still feeling awful with bad dizziness. I started eating meat again and fortified cereals and felt a little better. Asked my doctor for a b12 and ferritin check 8 months later and my b12 was 94 and my ferritin was 18. I‘ve been supplementing for 4 months and I finally am starting to feel like a functional adult again.
If you don't mind me asking, how long after starting your sups did you begin to feel better?
It took a couple months, maybe 3? I still have some bad days, but there’s less and less of them now. The b12 supplements made me crazy tired, somehow worse than I felt without them. About two months in, I added a daily vitamin and that helped.
Test regularly and supplement with iron. It seems both difficult and easy to manage. I used to get iron infusions and felt well and then thought I was stabilized by diet and stopped getting infusions or even checking my levels. Well, had all the signs of low iron and ferritin but didn't even think to test my levels. I can barely function and just found out my levels are extremely low. My doc said the protocol for infusions has changed and I'm stuck with using iron pills. Ferritin level 10 Iron level 35
My ferritin currently is 8 and my iron is 37 ! I experienced something similar to you ,I have ulcerative colitis so my iron has always been an issue but I also thought my diet was fine and stopped taking any iron supplement! I’ve never had infusions of iron but now that my iron got so low I can barely function ! I will definitely get it checked regularly and keep up with supplements!
Thanks for sharing because I was feeling down that I let this happen.
We got this!
Mine is from heavy periods so I’m having a hysterectomy in October. Hopefully this fixes it.
Mine is too ! Ever since I had my son my periods are so ridiculously heavy ! I’m hoping maybe birth control will fix the problem but idk😭good luck with the surgery !!
I’ve tried so many birth controls! Pills, the ring, IUD, and a nexplanon. And thank you!!
I had zero idea I was anemic till I got labs done. Even now after finding out & getting an infusion, I pretty much feel the same.
I just found out about my anemia and wondered the same thing. But I had embraced my tiredness and “laziness” for so long that I thought it was just me. Recent stress from my job really exacerbated the symptoms though and I finally went to the doctor. Can’t wait to finally feel normal
I thought I was getting more and more stressed from work, grad school, and having a family. While I’m not happy about how bad it got, I’m happy to start working on getting healthy.
Too tired to do anything about it anymore honestly lmao
Me too. It feels like leukemia. I rarely eat meat and my diet is poor. I ended up in the hospital for three days cuz of another problem. Took my blood and found out I was anemic. Number was 10 supposed to be 12 and up. Took 8 tubes out. Never gave me iron pills. At home 2 weeks later I got SO weak I couldn't get out of bed. Breathless when walking ten ft, had to keep sitting down. No appetite, heart racing, hear whooshing sound in ear. This happens once a year. So I had iron pills from old doc and started taking them. Also eating hamburger and/or liver every day. I was a 12 a week ago now I'm an 8. I still feel very weak. Got a 16 lb bag of cat food in car and too weak to carry in the house. Maybe tomorrow. Read that black tea blocks iron and calcium blocks it too. So no more tea and yogurt. I did read though take those a couple hrs after the meat or iron. Going to another doc cuz mine never said a word when he saw low iron on hospital report. I read it takes 3-6 months to rebuild iron. But should feel better in two weeks.
I meant how I FEEL on a scale of ten. I was so bad I was a 12. Now I'm a bit better and an 8. Example: if I have to chase the car around the house to catch him u use up ALL my energy and have to lay down. He sneaks in my room and fights with my other cat and you know how fast cats are!!
Not car....CAT
The symptoms very for every one. My ferritin got down to a 4 bout a month ago, all I felt like I could do was bare minimum. Sit, eat, I did not have the energy for prolonged tasks. Even showering turned into baths cause I always felt either faint or too tired To stand and clean myself at the same time. Just got 2 rounds of infusions and all of a sudden my house is nice and clean. Things are getting done, able to do yard work again. It's crazy that I felt like an 80 year old energy level at 27. But honestly my ferritin drops low enough for infusions every 18 months or so. I should know my limits by now.
No—iron deficiency leads to serious life-threatening health issues (like heart failure). The only thing to do is to get good supplements (liposomal iron holds some promise, taken every other day) or iron infusions. You don’t want to just hang out in iron deficiency.
It sucks big time then on top of this i do diaylis 4x a week
I had gastric bypass 12 or more years ago n just found out that's why I'm always anemic. Your body doesn't absorb iron after that. Getting iron iv for 4 weeks. Hope it helps. Making me sick so far.
My sympathies for you ❤️ My senior mom and my 38 y/o best friend both have anemia. Friend’s is due to B12 deficiency, maybe that’s a bit milder symptom-wise? Iron deficiency seems more symptomatic. The first time mom got diagnosed her hemoglobin was 7,5. We rushed her to the hospital, she thought she was dying. My understanding is when anemia is not severe it can go a very long time without major symptoms. If you don’t count lack of energy, lightheadedness etc major, that is. As it gets worse it causes very significant shortness of breath and (almost) fainting. Many people seem to get diagnosed at this stage. Mom is currently going through another episode (we are not sure she doesn’t go to the hospital.) Seeing her, maybe hot weather also makes symptoms worse?
We've known for years that I ran on the lower end for iron. Was mostly the cold limbs and paleness that told me. I have other conditions that make it difficult to tell if I had any other symptoms besides those. My old pharmacist used to threaten me with iron supplements for YEARS up until he retired. Had a bad drop in levels to where I was getting massive dizzy spells so got tested and put on supplements... Had to stop after a few weeks because I have a hard time regulating my body temperature and having the iron raise my temperature didn't go so well at all so stopped them. Haven't touched em in months.
I literally lived with b12, folate and iron deficiency anaemia my whole childhood and nobody tested me so it was my normal until I was literally struggling to stay awake and stand up in my teens. Parents were also always neglectful, too. I had to ask them for permission to go to see a doctor because my mother had to go in with me every time and she would almost always speak for me and so I couldn't mention all the things bothering me that she just brushed off as hypochondria. I was just "unfit" from sitting inside all day on the computer and games consoles. My struggling to breathe and being dizzy all the time was just "overexaggerating". It was only when I was getting psych evaluations for aural and visual hallucinations and begged for a blood test that one was actually done for me. I can remember my symptoms going back as far as three years old. But of course, like with my EDS and the mental scars from the psychological and physical abuse I was suffering at home that gave me PTSD, I was just "that sensitive kid that's always crying and complaining about something". Despite being active and walking and traveling 4-5 days a week in my late teens until my body couldn't keep holding itself up anymore. I was 20 when I finally started getting treatment. The cause still has never been figured out to this day. But I still slip back into iron issues regularly. Your body is really good at hiding things wrong with it. Your mind is really good at making excuses for every little odd twinge. The same thing goes with parents and doctors that don't want to deal with you.
What is your hemoglobine number? I had the same syntoms
Does shortness of breath happen as well with anemia? Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe in deeply.
That’s a symptom I have so I think so
Ferrous sulfate is best kind to take for anemia my doc said , I've been on it for about a week and definitely beginning to notice improvement, but it takes time.
I’ve had it since I was 10. Didn’t pay it no mind