iron reducing procedure/drugs/diet?

Hi everybody, been having a painful couple weeks abdominally, just learned in the mail that my iron is now above normal and wondering if this now a contributing factor to the pain.

Does anyone have a good file on a low iron diet, there's a lot of confusing facts out there when I went looking, and I already thought I had solved this only to read more conflicting info today.....so I though maybe one of you has found a master list already : ))))))).

Also, what is that procedured called that filters the blood,(not just bleeding us)?
but the filtering thingy??

And does anyone know what drugs they use to reduce iron, I was reading that they now know which gene in the duodenum causes the absorption but drug therapy is in it's infancy...or there might be one new medication now.
Maybe one of you knows more about this?

I'm starting to wonder what's left to eat, already cut out red meat, tomatoes, peppers, oranges, and now I read today poulty is no good either?? sheesh. Was I bad for having sugarless cranberry sauce even!!!!!!

maryB

[Mary4now]

Tomatoes, are tomatoes bad?  Geez,  I thought tomatoes were good,

[fightit]

I think phlebotomy is the safest way to go in our situation. I am going to start as soon as I can get a doctor to write the order.
There is a drug used for iron poisoning but I don't think it's indicated for us.
Diet is not very effective. I do avoid red meat, but you can't stop eating healthy foods and iron is in almost everything.
What are your numbers?

[merryBe]

evidently so, as a red/green peppers, not only because of their iron but because their vitamin C content makes them a "helper" in absorbing the iron in whatever else you eat.
You still need vitamin C in your diet, but it's better not to eat it in the same meal as iron rich foods or it aides their uptakes.

[merryBe]

I'm concerned bleeding makes no sense in that you lose all kinds of platelets and good stuff along with the iron.
I'm only at 14.8 iron but would like to nip this in the bud.
platelets are 188
WBC 4.3
so not wanting to lose blood and more of these guys naturally.

Been trying to watch the diet, but admittedly ate more poulty than usual over the holidays.

Also, I got a rebound UTI after antibiotics and gingerly hit it with sugarless cranberry juice for a couple days 20 oz maybe....rather than going off for more anti'B's....which may not have been wisdom it now appears.

[CockSparrow]

Your high iron is because your Red Cells are being Nuked.
If your iron wasnt high before Tx its just part of what happens.
CS

[alagirl]

Here is both my experience and my two cents on this.

my ferritin levels are now in the 3000 range.  Due to the transfusions I'm having to stay on this tx.  Its not a great or desirable place to be as the iron accumulates in your organs and causes end organ damage.  Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about it til after treatment.

After treatment, I have two options.  My hematologist will want to chelate it with drugs.  The drugs are very difficult, with harsh side effects.  Hands down, the latest research shows (and I have personally successfully done this before after having high ferritin levels) that bleeding is the best way to reduce high ferritin levels.

I had ranges in the 1000's due to a rural hematologist who misdiagnosed me with iron deficiency anemia a few years ago and transfused me with God only knows how much iron via IV.  I became quite ill and my anemia did not get better.  It also resulted in the settling of iron in my liver (this was checked by biopsy).  So I read a lot of studies and contacted specialists about how to get rid of the iron and finally talked my local primary doctor into removing my blood, a half unit or so at a time until my ferritin levels returned to normal.  I was on epogen and keeping my blood levels up nicely at the time (this was in 2004 or so).  It worked beautifully and brought my levels down fairly quickly.  Also, I had difficult symptoms from the increased iron and those were remediated by the reduction of the ferritin levels as well, which was awesome, because I hadn't known they were associated with the iron overdose prior to that, they were just unexplained.

In order to get the last bit of iron settled into your organs removed though, out into your bloodstream so it can be eliminated, sometimes the drug alternative is necessary.  That's only if your problem with the iron is that severe.

So post treatment, my plan at the moment is to do the bleeding thing again (after my blood count returns to its pre-ribavirin normal counts - I obviously don't HAVE any blood to BLEED at the moment), and then to get the last bits out of my organs with the gnarly harsh chelation meds.  Because organ failure is the very thing I'm trying to avoid by HCV tx.  I don't want to go the route of organ failure via excess iron brought on by transfusions during tx of HCV.  A little too much irony (bad pun, sorry).

[timo7]

Calcium helps block the absorption of iron. Ask your doc about the right dose for you.

[alagirl]

and of course, in terms of diet, its difficult because a lot of things that are good and healthy for you are also iron absorptive or enriching.  Not to mention just yummy in general from my point of view.  Vitamin C helps the body to absorb iron.

Now my entire diet is usually veggies, tofu, basically, a lot of stir fry.  There's a lot of iron and vitamin C in that stuff, not that it really matters since I'm too sick to cook anyway.

[merryBe]

ironic.......oh, my kingdom for a prune danish!!!

that's what I was afraid off...no good drugs to clear, and you with no blood...and yeah like how do you bleed out and loose platelets etc.on this tx.

your lady doc sounds as bad or worse than mine!!!

I am now watching for iron fortified cereals/flours and pasta...
amazing how many even health food whole wheat products have iron added.
also, have you eliminated the peppers from your stir fry.
I started that this week...but it really gripes me....the onions and peppers were the BESt part of my dietary day..   oh we do want our onions and leeks...don't we.....but we ain't in egypt anymore...rolleyes.

[alagirl]

I haven't actually really COOKED anything that didn't come out of a box first in about two months, so no worries about the stir fry, it went out the window a long time ago.

My blood count stays so low I get winded walking into the other room.  I don't use any caffeine at all, and I stay horizontal a good deal because the doctor wants to protect my heart with my blood count down so much.  Briefly when I took the prednisone for three or four days I quit hurting so bad, but now I stopped taking it last night out of fear it may hurt my progress (til I can talk to an expert about it) and I was amazed at how fast the pain came back.  Less than 24 hours.  So when I hurt I just take my medication, watch tv, try to sell a couple trucks of chicken to make the mortgage, sleep, and then do it all again.

I did get my new computer in finally a couple of days ago.  I killed the last one on tx because I kept falling asleep with it on my lap and it would slide off the bed onto my wood floor.  How many times can you drop an HP DV9000 headfirst on the floor before it crashes?

Six.  by my count anyway.

[merryBe]

I don't know...I was dropped on my head at least 13 times according to some brain scans : )))))))))))))))))))))))))))
maybe that's why my reboot takes forever...

cooking?  what's that???  the couch is my spaceship.....when I don't have to walk off the pain....
can you spell "did my taxes in bed the last 3 years...(except not last years...yet)....

gee, I can still remember when getting winded was from fun...(or else it just smelled funny)....remember that!!!!!!!
funny how experiences redefine so many words.....

[alagirl]

One night last week, right before I went into the hospital for my last transfusion I really lost it mentally my blood count was so low.  By that time I had crashed the one laptop so I was using this cpu next to my bed, with a flatscreen that I would lift up to the bed, along with a keyboard and mouse I could lift up to the bed, or have my son pick up for me, when I was using it.  

Well, I got so sick that night (i.e. menrtally diminished and incapacitated from lack of oxygen lol) that I ACTUALLY fell off of the bed after I fell asleep, slid into the cpu which was on a stool right next to the bed, and the entire thing plus me went crashing to the floor.  I was, honest to God, dreaming about penguins.  

You know, like I WAS a penguin, sluicing around in these ice shoots with the other penguins, (probably because I was actually falling at the time) It was kind of a fun dream until I hit the floor,  Very... 3-dimensional...

[alagirl]

ANYWAY.... lol, I am really happy to have a laptop again.  I am going to try really hard not to abuse this one too badly.  

[alagirl]

Also, what is that procedured called that filters the blood,(not just bleeding us)?
but the filtering thingy??
-----------------------------------------------------------
google "liver dialysis"

There are some hospitals where there are units but typically the machines are used for very serious cases of liver toxicity where it means the difference between life and death in terms of toxicity from heavy metals or poisoning from medications or herbs.

They have tried to use the machines as bridge to transplant devices with less success.

I think there will be dialysis used in hepc tx and cure in the next few years.  Just my personal view to which absolutely no one else subscribes.