low iron / ferritin levels

[rattyfraggle]

rattyfraggles my mum
i am 13 years old and have a question.

my mum has a ferritin of 8, mine is 6, , but we both have a red blood count of 13. we have both been told to take ferrous sulphate, but it doesn't raise the levels. my mums doctor told her it isn't hereditary, but it's odd that we both have the same results. does anybody have any information about this please.

from BAD ANGEL

bump

Can I ask why you both had your levels checked - do you have symptoms of iron deficiency?

By red blood count do you mean haemaglobin or yor red blood cell volumne?

One common reason for iron deficiency is heavy periods, there can be other causes such as exposure to lead. How much ferrous sulphate do you take a day? If you've been taking it for 6 weeks and its made no difference you ought to go back to your GP.

do you have thin hair or other symptoms

there's a really good natural way of getting iron called Spatone - from any health food shop or could buy from internet somewhere. It comes in satchets and contains water from a naturally iron-rich stream. My iron levels were low during pregnancy and I couldn't take the prescribed pills so found this instead and my iron levels shot back up again.

But if you're on 200mg tablets then you'd have to take 3 sachets of spatone to get the equivelent dose. So that would be 9 sachets a day.

Hate to contradict, but it's just not true Stripey - the iron in Spatone has a far higher bioavailability, so you don't need as much of it - only a tiny percentage of the iron in tablets is used by the body, hence so much of it ending up in the gut/bowel and causing such poo problems...

If you take 2 sachets a day, your body will have plenty to work with, and just take what it needs. sorry can say more but problms typing.

hth

Oh, their website says that 200mg of iron tablets = 3 sachets

www.spatone.com/en.php?section=faq&id=1

I looked it up the other day as one of the midwives at work told me to be careful of recommending it to pregnant women, it really should be a last resort for those who can't tolerate the tablets. But then it looks like there's 2 levels of bio availabilty for the 200mg tablets which confused me. Are there different types of 200mg tablets?

Message withdrawn

thank you for your messages. i had mine checked cuz i had very bad periods and am now taking 'the pill' and am feeling a bot better. my mum has to have regular tests as she has crohns disease. she cant take the ferritin very well so she just copes with it! am i fine on the ferritin so i will take it for a bit longer. the only difference i have noticed is that before i wanted sweets and sugar all the time but now i dont like it any more and now i like savoury stuff - so thats better!!

thanks again
Bad Angel