M49, whilst not vegetarian, my partner of 30years is so at home then rarely eat meat, when out I often choose fish - so for purposes of this call me a vegetarian. I've done some food tracking on MyFitnessPal and that suggests I get about 10% of my RDA of iron from my average week.
Was suffering with uncharacteristic fatigue on the days following a hard workout in period up to xmas. Admittedly working long hours, stressful time in the mix too, but was really made clear that each week my Wednesday 14km-16km run would be fine, then Saturday's long bike also good, but Sunday's longer run would be awful from the start, and I'd be absolutely 'spent' walking down the stairs in a morning Thursday Sunday/Monday. Also noticed lots of bruises that lasted for ages, some that appeared without me even knowing I'd bumped myself. A few years ago on physio advice I'd taken iron tablets for a while to address something similar and that was effective. So started taking them again between xmas and new year.
Did start feeling better after about a week, still don't think I'm 100%. Anyway had bloods done, noting this is a month after starting taking iron tablet supplements (I couldn't get in to get the bloods done pre for baseline). I've also had same tests done 18 months ago. Results below. My Dr Googling says that the results show that the iron supplements are ''working' to bring the iron back to 'normal' but the low ferratin is very much the lag indicator to show it was deficient. So far I've tolerated the iron tablets OK (720mg / day poly maltose equiv 200mg elemental iron) but still not totally without side effects.
So results.
Test Units 2022 post supplement Current
Iron umol/L 21 15
Ferritin ug/l 100 77
Transferrin g/l 2.62 2.58
Iron Sat % 35 25
Haemoglobin g/l 151 149
HCT L/L 0.45 0.45
MCV fL 91 91
MCH pg 30 30
WBC x10E9/L 8.4 7.9
Neut seg x10E9/L 5.5 5.1
Lymphocyte x10E9/L 2.0 2.1
Moncyte x10E9/L 0.7 0.6
Eosinophil x10E9/L 0.1 0.2
Basophil x10E9/L 0.1 0.1
Platelet Count x10E9/L 268 260
So questions to the pools panel.
1) I do eat green stuff. Spinach, kale, regularly as part of daily meals, eg salads. But I don't go out of my way to neck green smoothies every day. I'm not keen to get iron injections - whilst I may be able to get a TUE and indeed aren't currently in the running for placings I have a code that means I would very much prefer to manage this via diet or WADA 'green list' treatments. Has anyone else managed to make the changes to get from diet? As I say, based on my last 3 weeks then I'm not needing a 'bit more' iron, I'm needing a massive increase (or my specific foods aren't recording iron in myfitnesspal).
2) For the blood experts/medical geniuses/House-Good Doctor superfans - my itnerpretation of this correct, low iron, now being treated, but showing legacy of low Ferritin. everythign else looks good, so just treat the iron issue.
Was suffering with uncharacteristic fatigue on the days following a hard workout in period up to xmas. Admittedly working long hours, stressful time in the mix too, but was really made clear that each week my Wednesday 14km-16km run would be fine, then Saturday's long bike also good, but Sunday's longer run would be awful from the start, and I'd be absolutely 'spent' walking down the stairs in a morning Thursday Sunday/Monday. Also noticed lots of bruises that lasted for ages, some that appeared without me even knowing I'd bumped myself. A few years ago on physio advice I'd taken iron tablets for a while to address something similar and that was effective. So started taking them again between xmas and new year.
Did start feeling better after about a week, still don't think I'm 100%. Anyway had bloods done, noting this is a month after starting taking iron tablet supplements (I couldn't get in to get the bloods done pre for baseline). I've also had same tests done 18 months ago. Results below. My Dr Googling says that the results show that the iron supplements are ''working' to bring the iron back to 'normal' but the low ferratin is very much the lag indicator to show it was deficient. So far I've tolerated the iron tablets OK (720mg / day poly maltose equiv 200mg elemental iron) but still not totally without side effects.
So results.
Test Units 2022 post supplement Current
Iron umol/L 21 15
Ferritin ug/l 100 77
Transferrin g/l 2.62 2.58
Iron Sat % 35 25
Haemoglobin g/l 151 149
HCT L/L 0.45 0.45
MCV fL 91 91
MCH pg 30 30
WBC x10E9/L 8.4 7.9
Neut seg x10E9/L 5.5 5.1
Lymphocyte x10E9/L 2.0 2.1
Moncyte x10E9/L 0.7 0.6
Eosinophil x10E9/L 0.1 0.2
Basophil x10E9/L 0.1 0.1
Platelet Count x10E9/L 268 260
So questions to the pools panel.
1) I do eat green stuff. Spinach, kale, regularly as part of daily meals, eg salads. But I don't go out of my way to neck green smoothies every day. I'm not keen to get iron injections - whilst I may be able to get a TUE and indeed aren't currently in the running for placings I have a code that means I would very much prefer to manage this via diet or WADA 'green list' treatments. Has anyone else managed to make the changes to get from diet? As I say, based on my last 3 weeks then I'm not needing a 'bit more' iron, I'm needing a massive increase (or my specific foods aren't recording iron in myfitnesspal).
2) For the blood experts/medical geniuses/House-Good Doctor superfans - my itnerpretation of this correct, low iron, now being treated, but showing legacy of low Ferritin. everythign else looks good, so just treat the iron issue.