Re: IRON SUPPLEMENTS

[Guest guest]

<<Michele, could you tell me which is the iron you take? I know the

iron prescribed to Anya is illegal so I would love to use a legal one.

Anya 4 y.o.

UC Dec 2005

SCD May 28th 06

Meds MP6 50 mg. daily and Prednisone>>

Again..... ALL iron supplements are ILLEGAL on SCD, per Elaine's website, on the

" legal/illegal " list.

Patti

[Guest guest]

Liz,My husband was in the same boat -- bleeding for months after a year on the diet and anemic. We did try iron supplements as well and the levels did increase, but only slightly and not nearly enough. I tried to get the doctor to runs some tests to see if his body was sequestering iron to keep it away from the bad bacteria in the gut, but she really didn't get what I was wanting. In the end, even with the supplement, she finally decided that those levels must be his 'normal.' I don't think it is, but the subject was kind of dropped. If the doctor is really worried, maybe she could order iron infusions (not nice to experience I understand), and the gut would be by-passed.AmeliaTo: BTVC-SCD Sent: Fri, October 8, 2010 11:11:55 PMSubject: Iron supplements

My 15 yo son with UC just had blood work done and we found out this morning that he's anemic. The doctor wants him to take OTC iron twice a day with orange juice for the next month. Are there any legal iron supplements? Has anyone ever taken a liquid supplement?

I'm a bit frustrated because he's been on SCD for over a year (except for a few days when he went off to see if it was really helping) and has been on LDN and he still has problems with bleeding and is now anemic, where he wasn't 9 months ago. I'm not sure what else we can do...

Thanks for any input!

Liz

[Guest guest]

The last 15 years of my periods I bled half to death so I had iron in my

B12 shots that DH (thankfully!) gives me. They are slightly lumpy

so they are a little noticeable going in, but it sure beat the idea of

having to go in for infusions. At least to me it seemed

preferable.

Beets are good. They don't have a tremendous amount of iron but

apparently what they have is easily assimilated.

There are also iron injections you can do once a week at home. It's

not great having to give yourself shots, but worth it (IMO) to not take

the oral iron. It's been a while since I've done these- sorry I don't

have any specific info about the iron.

-Joanna

[Guest guest]

Liz,As someone else mentioned, they can do iron injections (vs. infusions) as well, so it doesn't have to be oral. Also, on the wiki link I sent, under diagnosis, it gives a bit of logic on determining if the anemia is from chronic illness, and there was a underlined link for TIBC, which is total iron binding capacity. If you click on it, it tells you a bit more on how to diagnose it by using some fairly standard tests. Although my husband tolerated the iron supplement we tried (Spatone, which is a Welsh water naturally high in iron and easily assimilated), it didn't raise it enough to get him into the 'normal' range -- but it did raise it. We were living in the UK at the time, and trying to get iron injections would have been like pulling teeth. I tried to get

B12 + iron injections and they kept insisting that he didn't need them, but wanted him to take the iron tablet. Go figure.AmeliaTo: BTVC-SCD Sent: Sat, October 9, 2010 10:49:04 PMSubject: Re: Iron supplements

Amelia,

Thanks for the information. I hesitate to not give my son an iron supplement because 1) It was doctor's orders, not my choice and 2) My son has been bleeding a lot and I'm sure that his iron is low because of the bleeding.

I won't be giving him the 325 mg pill twice a day as suggested, because I think that will cause more problems than it will solve, but I think the lower dose, liquid supplement will give him some extra iron without overkill.

Has anyone ever had testing done to see if their body is holding on to the iron in the way the article mention?

Thanks,

Liz