Today's Bloodwork

My iron was high about five years ago (whenever I so much as looked at wine it would rise :-).  

Apart from totally abstaining from acohol (which I must add has been quite enjoyable - and it appears I'm not the only person out there who doesn't drink), I also gave up coffee (don't know if that did anything), but allowed myself to continue drinking tea.

Black tea apparently stops iron from absorbing (my Chinese GP said it had to be 'chinese black tea' but I can't find any).  Another post on this site said that pysillium husks prevent the iron absorption also.  There may be something else out there if you google it.

I was wondering where I could buy some leeches from :-( - having little dreams about heading off to the jungle to get my iron down.... it get's a bit desperate when we're trying to think of how to bleed ourselves (leeches apparently work much better than bleeding:-), if we're post menopausal it adds more load........

Congrats on your endoscopy; that's really great news....

I don't use caffein or drink.  I never really drank much anyway - even before I found out I had hepc I maybe had one or two drinks a month tops, and of course I gave it up completely when I found out I had hepc.  You know, leeches aren't a bad idea and you can buy them online, but I think I'm going to do phlebotomy and get a couple units removed (one at a time) and see if that works.

I had too much iron four years ago and phlebotomy was very successful then.  At that time I had too much because a hematologist thought I had iron deficiency anemia and gave me IV iron when actually I had a different type of anemia.  This time I have too much iron because I had about 12 blood transfusions during my treatment.

Calcium is supposed to help chelate iron and so is aspirin and I use both pretty liberally, but I just don't think anything you eat can absorb high levels of iron - you have to either use pharmaceutical chelation or phlebotomy and phlebotomy is the most benign way to do it according to most of the studies.  

OMG - what kind of a hematologist - wow, I get so sad the some medicos are so irresponsible.

I agree that generally speaking nothing can stop the absorption of iron, but I did read about the tea and when I mentioned it to my GP he laughed and confirmed that it was true but it had to be chinese black tea -  I certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone go nuts on black tea; but I do allow myself this treat twice a day - mmmmm (a cup of tea is a bit of a security blanket for me - my Dad was ex Britain so go figure - cuppa tea fixes anything doh!).

They tested me for heamachromatosis because of the high iron but it came back negative.  It's within normal limits now (fluctuates a bit); maybe just because I started looking after myself at last and there was enough life left it me to fight it off a bit?  I do agree that phlebotomy is the best way to go :-)/
Oh wow alagirl - did you have the transfusions during tx?  It breaks my heart to see what you've had to endure.  I'm booked for an endoscopy in August - I was really hoping not to have it during tx, but will cross that bridge when I come to it.
Hugs to u :-)