Got my latest blood results and my Iron levels which shot up dramatically and took me out of 6-12 months of living with anemia, are already crashing hard and at this rate a month from now I'll be anemic again :\
Feels like with health stuff, it just is never ending. Need to do all the various testing to try to figure out why I can't absorb iron at all. And will almost assuredly need to do another iron infusion in a month or two. Which sucks because while it worked great, it was basically like being sick for two weeks straight while your body runs in overdrive and converts the iron. If I only get like 3-4 months out of it, that's not great.
So now I gotta figure out the timing with my surgery. Because will probably be hitting anemia right around when I'm recovering from that. Fingers crossed a bit later so I can do the surgery, recover, then do the iron infusion and be sick for two weeks and hopefully have identified the cause and be able to stop it from falling off so much again this time.
My ferritin (iron stores) were like 5 last year and anything below 30 is bad and you need an IV infusion of iron. Normal range is 38-300. 7 weeks after my iron infusion I jumped from 5 -> 99 ferritin. But now 6 weeks from that I fell from 99 -> 50 ferritin.
It really doesn't seem like it's being caused by my crohn's disease because I don't have any active inflammation showing in my intestines. Also doesn't seem like it's from cancer/internal bleeding because none of that has shown either. From google it really seems like there's only a few other things that could be causing me to be completely unable to absorb iron:
-Celiac Disease (gluten inflammation of small intestines) - Would need to go on a gluten-free diet.
-Thyroid issues of not producing enough hormones and apparently it messes with your stomach acid and absorption of iron - Would need to take hormone pills
-Small Bowl Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) - bacteria in your small intestine steals and eats all the incoming iron before your body can absorb it - Would need to be on a rotation of antibiotics and diet changes
-Long term damage from PPI (anti-acids) messing with your acid levels and ability to absorb iron - would need to taper off the anti-acid med I've been on for 20 years for my acid reflux
I'm hoping it's a thyroid issue because that seems the easiest to treat and recover from if it's just an extra pill to add to my list of pills I gotta take daily. Waiting for my doc to give me a lab order for a thyroid/hormone test.
Pretty bummed about all this. Was so depressed and tired and fatigued last year on anemia and really not looking forward to falling into that even for a short term again. Keep wanting to be done with all this health stuff so I can get back to living my life. First was the surgery I had last year and recovery, then was the anemia last year until I got my iron infusions, then was these swollen lymph nodes on my neck that took 4 months to get to the right doctor and check and see that they weren't cancer, then it's another surgery and recovery I gotta go through, and then it'll be another iron infusion and time figuring out what's causing the iron issues and treating that.
I just want to get back to feeling normal and being able to go do things with people and travel and go on dates. It just feels never ending medical issues.
I knew the iron infusion wasn't going to last forever, since we never figured out the underlying cause of the iron deficiency, but from what I read and people's experiences with iron infusions, was really hoping it'd last at least 6 months if not a full year before had to look into iron infusions again. Not like getting near anemia levels again after 3 months
