Had surgery a couple of weeks ago and lost over 2 1/2 pints of blood after surgery from hemorhaging. My hemoglobin became very low.
I have had low ferritin levels for over two years but other numbers were normal.
Anyway, the hemorhaging made me anemic. The oncoligist who did my surgery told me to take a pre-natal vitamin to bring up iron levels.
My PCP has said that a transfusion should have been discussed given that I had lost a significant amt. of blood so rapidly....
She is offering me a iron IV infusion...takes several hours to administer....anyone else ever done this and has it improved weakness, headache, paleness, fatigue?
Pro's and con's appreciated!
Posted by pas (Member # 22416) on :
Hi FeelFit,
I'm very sorry to hear about what you're going through.
I can not comment first-hand about the infusions, but I can pass along what I've been told by others who are more experienced...
I am scheduled to start IV iron in a few weeks for severe iron-deficiency anemia.
There are a few different preparations of IV iron. Some are more likely than others to cause allergic reactions. These can be typical hives/anaphylactic types of reactions, or they can be serum-sickness like reactions which involve more flu-like symptoms and can last longer.
You should be pre-medicated with either Benadryl or Decadron (steroid) or both, especially for the first treatment.
The infusion should be given slowly as you said. Some are once/week, others are for several days in a row. This is up to your PCP and oncologist/hematologist, and can be determined by your blood levels.
I have been procrastinating on my infusions because I've read that the body suppresses its own iron stores in the case of infection. Apparently iron is needed for the proliferation of bacteria. My LLMD was aware of this but my hematologist was not!!
There are labels on most of the IV iron preparations that list acute/chronic infection as contraindications. This might be worth asking your doc about, just to be on the safe side.
In my opinion, low Ferritin by itself is not a reason to jump into IV replacement. But anemia (especially if it's severe) is.
The people I've spoken with have felt tremendously better when their levels were restored, even if they had reactions to the IV initially. Iron deficiency is known to cause symptoms even prior to causing frank anemia...
Posted by feelfit (Member # 12770) on :
Pas,
Thank you very much for the above information...so informative! And much to consider.
In regards to the ferritin levels, my LLMD has said the same...iron feeds the infections. He was adament that I DID NOT supplement with iron despite low ferritin levels.
Will be seeing him on Monday and will get his take on all of this.
good luck to you! Should you decide to go ahead with the infusions, would you be so kind as to keep me posted?