Iron for Tigger and Marjie

September 1, 2003

Tigger and Marjie,

I was taking Carbonyl and to get my iron up quickly, the bariatric

program director at my hospital and dietician switched me to

polysacharide iron that comes in an elixir form. The brand is

Nifirex and I had to have my pharmacy special order a bottle of it.

It doesn't taste particularly good but it was effective for me. I

took it three times daily and in combination with chewable Vitamin

C. You should not take calcium within 2 hours of the iron also as

the calcium will bind with it, absorb it and you won't get any

benefit from the iron whatsoever. It takes a little coordination to

get everything in correctly but it was well worth it when I started

to feel so much better after a few weeks. It tripled my ferritin

level within 30 days. It does also come in a pill form but the

dietician did not want to take a chance so she suggested the liquid.

The stuff can stain your tongue and teeth slightly so I also use a

teeth whitener. I would suggest you get your iron levels checked

immediately so you know where you stand and then you can benchmark

whether the iron is working for you in 30 to 45 days by re-testing.

Unfortunately, on a rare occasion, the polysacharide doesn't work for

people either and they have to get an iron infusion but I would try

the liquid iron first. I think there are some other products that

can work but I am a little gun shy to switch since this worked so

well for me. My PCP knows so little about WLS patients and their

challenges all he did was tell me to take some iron pills which I was

already doing. What I mean by that is if you go to a Dr., it doesn't

mean he knows how to help you just because he is a Dr. When my

ferritin kept plummeting, he looked at me and said " I don't have a

clue about what to do to fix this. " A hematologist would be the

next logical step if your iron levels don't rise. This group was the

source of a lot of my info too and if anyone else has any suggestions

please pipe up because I certainly don't know it all. Good luck and

keep us posted, I know how bad it sucks to have no energy but you can

feel better, just gotta do a little work on it!!

R in Nashville

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