Arsed off with doctors ignoring blood results

That ferritin is too low. The ideal number is about 100. Not encouraging you but ferrous sulphate tablets are available over the counter in a pharmacy. Your GP does not understand ferritin levels

I asked if I stabbed myself in the ovary would they operate quicker…

It is low. Buy some ferrous sulphate from a chemist and take one in the morning with fruit juice & avoid tea/coffee for a couple of hours after you take it to maximise absorption. Do this for at least 3 months. If it gives you diarrhoea or constipation, move to taking one every other day.

All of these issues are compounded by the fact that the NICE guidelines for ferritin levels are significantly wider than comparable countries.

In France they intervene below 50. I don't know how the NHS levels are so out of kilter - perhaps the French definition of healthy is "feels in good health" but we translate it to "not in imminent need of hospitalisation".

Well for a start the doctor could say her ferritin level is low and she ought to take iron supplements (or actually prescribe them!) rather than say everything is normal and nothing to worry about. If OP hadn't checked her results herself she wouldn't have known she needs to take iron, and there's a lot of patients who will just hear the doctor say 'everything normal' and believe that instead of checking results themselves.

My GP did this with my thyroid test. I have had Hashimotos and hypothyroidism for 20+ years. I recently lost 45kg, had a chat before blood work with the pharmacist for 'medicine review' and asked if weight loss affected thyroid medication. I was told no, it was irrelevant due to blood tests.

Made sense. Blood test comes back and, for the first time ever, says I'm borderline hyperthyroid. "Satisfactory - no further action need"

Well, that was 7 months ago and now I have night sweats, racing heart, irregular periods etc.

Is it perimenopause or thyroid medication overdose which, as I now understand, is the primary reason for hyperthyroidism in a large swathe of the population.

Who can say? Symptoms overlap so no idea.

I feel sorry for you/us. I don't understand this trend. We have to be proactive but it's hard for me to approach the same people who messed this up in the first place.

Don't have an answer but do sympathise with your position.

Had this issue last week , my kidney function had dropped from 21 to 14 and I was feeling really unwell - it was reviewed as ok and if I hadn’t checked nhs app I wouldn’t have known I needed to take action urgently

It sort of does when the range is ridiculously wide though surely? Ferritin levels of 17 are not 'just outside' normal

Medical ranges are 95% confidence intervals for normal people, which means that 1/20 healthy people will get tests beyond the range.

A lot of the tests also vary day by day with hydration etc.

Doctors are trained to look for patterns, as well as see how they with the symptoms.

They do sometimes get it wrong but one set of blood tests slightly out of range doesn’t say very much.

This!! I've seen it happen over and over, you go for a problem, they do tests, nothing shows up and.....nothing then happens! No interest in finding out what the issue actually is from that point on, it's just blood test and then nothing.

I have the same ferritin level and its been around that point for at least 10 years. It was only this year that I realised the GPs had been telling me that its 'normal' are actually wrong!

Have you tried iron syrup? It's much easier on your stomach!

If its still that low even with supplements have you thought about asking for a test for h pylori? Ir even getting on privately maybe? It should be going up with supplements. The fact it isn't suggests DIY have some sort of absorption issues

On a similar vein, I had twenty years of "your blood tests are normal so you can't get ill" only to discover I had been ill all that time but not with something they had been testing for!

Can you start an iron supplement OP? I had ferritin of 17 recently and started taking a supplement, gentle iron bisglycinate in the evening with vitamin C.

It's so annoying - GP also told me my B12 was fine even though it's in the low range of NHS ranges. Googling it says it's alarmingly low along with a number of other concerning things on my blood test.

Have you asked them to check for coeliac disease at all?

So from that, your ferritin is low, but what do you want the NHS to do? They can’t force you to take an iron tablet. There isn’t really at this stage anything else to action. You need to take some iron and likely change your diet (more iron rich foods, less of stuff that might irritate your digestive tract and impact absorption like alcohol).

Too many GPs look at the blood tests on the computer screen and disregard the symptoms. If they want to argue that these blood test results do not account for the symptoms (maybe they are right although seem low to me) then what is their next action for investigating what the cause of the symptoms is. A negative result does not mean you are well rather that they haven't done the correct diagnostic test yet. And even if they believe it is all in your head what action are they taking to give you the mental health support to help.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8ex68544xko

I had a full blood count done recently. Test was out of range so was asked to complete again in a month's time.
When the second tests came back ,still out of range and the word 'other' appeared on my record.
When I googled other it means that as two test are out of range you should see your doctor to try to find out the cause and potentially have other tests done. A week went by and a commentary appeared saying 'patient informed' but I hadn't been. If I hadn't looked up other I would have had no idea I was supposed to make an appointment.
When I pointed this out a doctor sent an email apologising and suggesting I make an appointment to discuss the results. Apparently her ginger had slipped on the wrong button resulting in patient informed when I hadn't been.
It seems to me they had no intention of getting me to make an appointment and by putting ,'patient informed' on the record it covers their back if I'd had a stroke or something and no tests had been done. It would look like I knew the advice was to come on but had chosen to ignore it.
When I did get an appointment, they just said that there was no need for investigations as the results were ',,just out of range:. No queries about my general health even though I told them of being very fatigued lately. As I haven't seen a doctor in ten years, I told them I was concerned about something and the bloods were slightly off you would think this would warrant at least some further investigation. What is happening to our precious NHS! I would be interested to hear a doctor:s take on this, especially in bore of the untrue patient informed. Is there now a culture of over worked doctors fobbing off as much as possible?

I have been on these for years, after taking different ones (I have IBS so need something gentle on the stomach). I too have had tests and a colonoscopy to rule out Coeliac and other things after years of iron deficiency without anaemia. All negative. Anecdotal but just been diagnosed with ADHD and there is growing evidence that low Vit D, B12 and iron is common in the ADHD community.

Solgar gentle iron:

https://amzn.eu/d/0jjz9OxD

Also this high strength Vit C at same time:

https://amzn.eu/d/02eSD45y

Also worth researching things which inhibit iron absorption, such as tannins in tea and alcohol (one of the reasons I've all but given up booze).

Which maybe fine if the doctor clearly explains the results and reasoning to the patient.

Also, Drs are not always right. I was exhausted in my late 20s, tired but wired. The first time I went to the GP he told me to modify my life style (rude actually), the second he sighed and ordered a blood test for anaemia.

Two years later, my legs swelled like balloons and I saw a GP privately. Tests indicated my thyroid overactivity was so great it was impacting my heart. Only when diagnosed did I realose I'd struggled for three or four years with: weight (loss), overheating, feeling on edge, trembling a bit when hungry and a gripey tummy.

Five years ago when I wedged (badly) my T12 and the pain was exactly the same as when I did the L1. The hospital A&E didn't take me seriously, the junior Dr when rwviewing the Xray told me there were no new breaks (despite writing in the notes fracrures to L1 and T12). She clearly didn't want to lose face because she argued so strongly there was no need for an XRay (principle injury was a severe wrist fracture that needed pins and plates). It was compounded by the hospital sub co tracted radiology report referring to old fractures.

I was in extreme pain after 3 to 4 weeks and went to the GP who asked me to touch my toes and said "no way is anything broken if you can reach your mid shins" and handed me the XRay report which I put straight in my bag. Only did I look at otna few days layer and see old fractures to L1 and T12. The T12 had never been broken before and that was clearly noted in my recorda.

A private MRI identified a new fracture and the result was a referral back to my rheumatologist to have teriparatode replace zolendronate maintenance infusions for my osteoporosis.

With the greatest respect, please don't peddle nonsense that all doctors always know best. They don't and sometimes their lackadaisical approach is not good for the patient. Sometimes patients shoukd be listened to rather than dismissed.

As you were and perhaps you coukd afford your patients a little more respect moving forward.

I take Vega Vitamins 50mg, Iron Blys.... (whatever, the gentle one)

I take 2 a day

Peer reviewed studies and guidelines outside the UK say ferritin should be 50. Ferrous fumarate tablets are cheap and easy to buy OTC (online).
If you want/ need an iron transfusion then you'll have to pay for that yourself. One of my friends did this and it made a massive difference.

I paid for my own DEXA bone scan because i wasnt eligible on the nhs despite them having dismissed my (with hindsight) classic perimenopause symptoms for almost a decade leaving me with incredibly low oestrogen and testosterone, and knock on endocrine issues. I think it was about £200.

Also, do you have heavy bleeding, if you do, are they doing anything about this?

So women can have low ferritin levels and be symptomatic but that's OK because they menstruate and it's only to be expected!

If a man produced those low results and similar symptoms then they would be all over it.

I would seek a second opinion ....