Chronic Low ferritin. Need advice from those who have fixed low ferritin.

[Jin23]

You’re right.

I totally forgot about the blog and hepcidin. The Brain fog is terrible. I don’t remember shit. And the fact with TRT it’s a crap shoot raising that to help increase ferritin, hence the protocol. Duh.

Damn HGH use.

Test is 1000 peak - free was 250-270ish peak. I’d pull up the test it’s self but it’s thru my Endo and their portal locked me out.

Looks like I need to follow the blog huh? My only shot other than lowering my TRT/HGh

Yes, probably. But make no mistake, that protocol will probably wreck your gut and also it's a pita to maintain as ferritin wont stay in place. It will always have a tendency to drop down.

How was that free T measured? And what's the range there?

Your best course of action is to first diagnose the issue ofc. It might be or it might not be the HRT levels. So first course of action would be to lower T to normal, mid range levels, ie. 500 - 700 ng/dl and stop using GH. If ferritin levels exhibit a significant rise and they stay there then it's the HRT levels.

Second, if now you know what's the issue, start slowly increasing hrt levels, which ever is more important to you first and follow your ferritin levels along the way. Once ferritin starts dropping off, you know you've hit your ceiling and then decide if those levels are good enough for you or not.

This is the only true way of going at things. Otherwise you'll just be throwing darts in the dark and chasing your own tail till the end of your life? You need to get this variables down, you need to know the limits of your body first. It's going to be a tedious project, but it needs to be done. Fuck gaining muscle mass for now. Quality of life is more important, don't be an idiot.

 

[Avies48]

Give this an in depth read there is a lot of different info in this site… it may or may not help… just posting for awareness… it maybe a gut issue not absorbing iron… especially if ur on a glp…

Fixing High Hemoglobin or Hematocrit and Low Ferritin While on TRT

 

[Tbaz192]

Give this an in depth read there is a lot of different info in this site… it may or may not help… just posting for awareness… it maybe a gut issue not absorbing iron… especially if ur on a glp…

Fixing High Hemoglobin or Hematocrit and Low Ferritin While on TRT

Yeah my hematologist referred me to a GI doctor. GI doc was very certain I don’t have GI issues. But still wanted to scope my stomach. But unfortunately my insurance won’t cover most of it, so it’s $800 just for that doctor which does not include the surgical center, the quick operation, and the anesthesiologist.
Fuckin ridiculous. So I cancelled it.

 

[Liter O' Test]

fuck doctors

 

[Tbaz192]

How was that free T measured? And what's the range there?

Got my results on quest.
Well there’s my problem.
2X the normal range on free test. Whoops.

Yeah I gotta drop the dose for a little while and see if ferritin comes up. Really dont want to. But it’s the only logical next step.

Low ferritin, It’s not terrible to live with. But it gets the point where my body can’t recover and I’m lacking proper oxygen transport with the increased work load or gear load. I stay sore, I’m exhausted, winded, and brain fog is terrible.
Basically doing the opposite of my goal.

 

[Tbaz192]

I’m dropping every thing.
Going to 65mg cyp every M/Th should have me 500-700ng/dl

Iron empty stomach with 1000mg Vit C.
Copper & packed multi vitamin mid day.

I have another lab appointment November 10th with my hematologist, I’ll see if there js an improvement in around 4 weeks of doing that.
hope the prolonged elevated dose was my issue & I can rebuild to be able to blast come next year.

 

[Avies48]

I’m dropping every thing.
Going to 65mg cyp every M/Th should have me 500-700ng/dl

Iron empty stomach with 1000mg Vit C.
Copper & packed multi vitamin mid day.

I have another lab appointment November 10th with my hematologist, I’ll see if there js an improvement in around 4 weeks of doing that.
hope the prolonged elevated dose was my issue & I can rebuild to be able to blast come next year.

Did u read the website i posted a few posts above??

 

[Tbaz192]

Did u read the website i posted a few posts above??

Yeah. The trick of iron multiple times a day to sky rocket hepcidin tricking your body into directly storing it all in/as ferritin or whatever.

I’ve done it once and it helped I think?
It got my ferritin up to 31.
But absolutely trashed my gut. Felt bloated and gassy/rumbling for a week.

Really the only thing keeping me from just trying that again. Pain in the ass and the gut problem.

 

[Tbaz192]

Within in two minutes I changed my mind,
Fuck it. I’ll do that.
And I’ll run an experiment for yall.
I’ll follow it to the T.
But also will be lowering my T dose still to 50-65mg x2 a week. To hopefully optimize this.

9am | 3pm | 9-12pm
(70mg iron ferrous biglycinate now sports)

Be back next week or two with results lol

 

[Superchicken]

Vorck is active in the fb group called The Iron Protocol and might offer insight. Based on The Iron Protocol guides, your dose was too small. The non heme calculation is weight in kg x 2 for min and weight in kg x 5 for max, not to exceed 400 a day. Heme’s wt x 1.5 and wt x 2. This study says 100-200 split twice daily, and also notes less than 30 as being deficient.

Iron - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

Dr Layla Van Doren is a hematologist who’s done some podcasts on infusions if you wanna google. The only one I’d for sure avoid is Injectafer. It’s associated with hypophosphatemia and I see more people complain of sides with it.

This is from the American Society of Hematology and says use 30 as the cutoff, up to 50 for some individuals.

https://www.hematology.org/-/media/hematology/files/education/clinicians/guidelines-quality/ida-dx-public-comment.pdf

In case you aren’t aware, raising ferritin can cause d and b12 to drop, because they all work together. So it’s important to test and maintain those.

Iron infusions made such a huge impact in my health. I hope you can get yours taken care of. If you join that FB group, you might be able to find a dr rec. That’s how I found a med spa. I had 3 iron dextran infusions each spaced a couple mos apart, cost $1100 total. Even with levels low enough for insurance to cover, I couldn’t get the hematologist to order infusions either. His solution was to stop exercising and keep taking oral iron. Insurance didn’t even care about hemoglobin, as long as ferritin was low. I use Feosol now to maintain, has a heme/non heme blend and a non only on Amazon. It doesn’t mess my gut up even at high doses. I liked the Three Arrows heme, but after 2 weeks thought I may never poop again. Trial and error to figure out which works best for you.

 

[Deadpool99]

I too decided to deal with my low iron, for me it's runs in the family, and as a Middle Eastern, It's most likely a genetic iron-handling phenotype, been there since I was a natty but never decided to give af. Never faced issues but now I was like why not fix it.

However I'd like ur guy's opinion. I am supplementing with iron rn but some of my research, however not as deep as you're guy's.

Apparently I can consider myself not “iron deficient.”.Please correct me but if it's likely have a genetic or hereditary functional iron restriction that’s common in Middle Eastern populations.

The correct approach is occasional IV repletion if symptomatic, plus monitoring and avoiding overcorrection, not chronic high-dose oral iron as some research suggested it won't rly move the needle in my case

Mild RBC issue, nothing changed but I think t3 might play a role in it as I'm using some high t3 in my cut, will recheck it after.

 

[Jin23]

Within in two minutes I changed my mind,
Fuck it. I’ll do that.
And I’ll run an experiment for yall.
I’ll follow it to the T.
But also will be lowering my T dose still to 50-65mg x2 a week. To hopefully optimize this.

9am | 3pm | 9-12pm
(70mg iron ferrous biglycinate now sports)

Be back next week or two with results lol

No man. Do one thing at a time. You need to diagnose what the problem is and to where you can push it.

 

[Jin23]

I’m dropping every thing.
Going to 65mg cyp every M/Th should have me 500-700ng/dl

Iron empty stomach with 1000mg Vit C.
Copper & packed multi vitamin mid day.

I have another lab appointment November 10th with my hematologist, I’ll see if there js an improvement in around 4 weeks of doing that.
hope the prolonged elevated dose was my issue & I can rebuild to be able to blast come next year.

You only need vit c if you are taking fe3 not fe2 (ferrous) iron. And there really is no need to take ferric iron, it's harder on the gut. Just take iron bisglycinate or some other chelated ferrous iron supp.

C'mon This is some basic chit.

Also, this thread is derealing you too much. Do one thing at a time and do it properly.

And one more thing, if you are in fact on reta, that could also cause you issues.

 

[lamehack]

this will fix it - within 1 week. apologies if already was posted, dont feel like reading all of this

Fixing High Hemoglobin or Hematocrit and Low Ferritin While on TRT

 

[Tbaz192]

C'mon This is some basic chit.

Doesn’t help when you get told 20 different things including from doctors but everyone says vitamin C no matter what lol.

Doesn’t really hurt ig

 

[Jin23]

Doesn’t help when you get told 20 different things including from doctors but everyone says vitamin C no matter what lol.

Doesn’t really hurt ig

Mah no, not really. It helps a little bit via it's antioxidant action, helping that ferrous iron doesn't oxidese back to fe3.

You most probably don't have iron absorption issues though so I wouldn't complicate.

Toss out the reta first. Maybe it is the reta, who knows ...

Then lower hrt.

 

[Photon]

Mah no, not really. It helps a little bit via it's antioxidant action, helping that ferrous iron doesn't oxidese back to fe3.

You most probably don't have iron absorption issues though so I wouldn't complicate.

Toss out the reta first. Maybe it is the reta, who knows ...

Then lower hrt.

Reta? Not GLP?
Does it have some specific issue with iron?

 

[Tbaz192]

Mah no, not really. It helps a little bit via it's antioxidant action, helping that ferrous iron doesn't oxidese back to fe3.

You most probably don't have iron absorption issues though so I wouldn't complicate.

Toss out the reta first. Maybe it is the reta, who knows ...

Then lower hrt.

Yeah I dropped the reta last week.
Lowering HRT & going to take 72mg iron empty stomach every morning. Get ferritin test in 2-3 weeks
See if any improvement.

My guess is, these prolonged cruise level. Just tanked my ferritin and it’s never been able to prooperly recover.
I go thru cycles of feeling fine and can get after it in the gym. And then a month or two later. I add in another compound or up the dose slightly & get hit with exhaustion and fatigue. And ferritin comes back Low every time. Body just needs time

 

[Tbaz192]

Reta? Not GLP?
Does it have some specific issue with iron?

According to the internet etc,
due to the slowing of gastric emptying with GLPs/reta it can cause you to not absorb nutrients right.

And with the ferritin protocol. The 70mg 3x a day to raise hepcidin and dump iron. GLPs completely throw off that timing and won’t work. It’ll just raise your HGB versus the intention of raising ferritin and dumping all the excess iron.

 

[Jin23]

Reta? Not GLP?
Does it have some specific issue with iron?

They also lower inflammation and lower insulin resistance, both of which increase hepcidin and ferritin ...